Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Shoeless robber’s screwdriver raid
A SHOELESS crook held up a Dundee Co-op with a screwdriver for tobacco and a lighter.
Nicholas McKenzie, 42, carried out his raid early one morning last December, just as the Brook Street store had opened.
He told shop worker Luke Hibbart he would be taking the cash from his register as he flashed the hilt of a blue item from inside his sleeve.
Although he believed it to be a knife, brave Mr Hibbart closed the till and the door to the cash desk area, preventing McKenzie getting any money.
McKenzie took the tobacco and lighter without paying and left the shop.
He was traced by police around an hour later, shoeless and injured.
Depute fiscal Gavin Barton told Dundee Sheriff Court: “At around 6.20am the accused re-entered the store, having entered 20 minutes earlier and headed straight to the checkout.
“The accused asked for tobacco and a lighter.
“He then told Mr Hibbart ‘you are going to empty your till’.
“He showed the top of the what the witness thought, initially, was a knife.
“Mr Hibbart closed the till.
“The accused responded ‘I’ll take this then’, taking the tobacco and lighter with him.
“Police traced the accused at around 7.50am. He was not wearing any shoes.
“At around 9.50am, PC McDonald, a dog handler, found the blue-handled screwdriver.”
In mitigation, defence solicitor Theo Finlay said his client had pled guilty at the earliest opportunity and had “no recollection” of events.
“It is significant he was found in the street, covered in mud and without shoes.
“He was taken to hospital and found to have a collapsed lung.
“He admits he had consumed street Valium, he was staying at the hostel on Brewery Lane.
“He does not have a good record for this sort of thing.”
Jailing McKenzie for more than a year, Sheriff Alastair Carmichael said: “This is a serious offence involving the implied use of a weapon. You in effect held up a shopkeeper.”
McKenzie was sentenced to seven months for the offence and returned to prison to serve the remaining 160 days of an unexpired sentence from a previous conviction.