ARMED ROBBER CAUGHT ON CAMERA
This is the moment terrified staff at a Sunderland betting shop were confronted with a masked robber who was armed with a claw hammer.
Thomas Brand, who had previously served a 12-year prison sentence for conspiracy to murder, stormed into Coral in Roker Avenue, wearing a ski mask and demanding cash from two female workers.
When one of the frightened members of staff tried to reach for the panic button to summon help, the 45-year-old raider, who was brandishing the hammer, warned her not to touch anything.
After filling a bag with notes and coins from the till, footage shows Brand made off on a bike with more than £600 in takings.
He was arrested after police tracked his get-away route on the CCTV and found where he had discarded his mask, which had his DNA on it.
One of the two women who were working in the shop said she had tried to remain calm during the raid, but told police: “To be confronted by a masked male brandishing a hammer is a very frightening situation to be in.”
Both women told detectives they were scared during the ordeal and one can be seen breaking down in tears when Brand leaves the shop at the end of the ordeal on December 10, which was captured in full on the shop’s CCTV.
Brand, of Brandling Street, Roker, admitted robbery and was jailed for four years at Newcastle Crown Court last week.
Brand also pleaded guilty to a burglary at the Lambton Worm pub in Sunderland city last October, after he and an accomplice were caught fleeing the pub in the early hours of the morning after smashing their way in.
Brand was on bail for the break-in when he committed the bookies raid.
After the betting shop robbery, Brand carried out a second pub burglary, which he pleaded guilty to, at the Hastings Hill pub in Sunderland in the early hours of December 30.
Jamie Adams, defending, said Brand, who has a long criminal record, tried hard but failed to find legitimate work after his release from the murder conspiracy sentence and drifted back into taking cocaine.