UPDATE: |Balaclava clad thug left shopkeepers fearing for their lives in knifepoint robberies News

Jack Dewhurst has been jailed

A balaclava-clad armed robber left shopkeepers fearing for their lives after bursting into two convenience stores in terrifying knifepoint heists committed within days of each other.

Drug addict Jack Dewhurst, 27, brandished a large kitchen knife at two robberies of shops in Bolton, stealing cash at both. Shopkeepers at both stores have been left traumatised and feared they would be injured or even killed, Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

Another man, Shane White, 52, who was found to have assisted him at the second robbery, was also locked up.

Prosecuting, Hayley Parkes told how the shopkeeper was outside the Go Local store on Church Street, at about 9.30pm on August 7 last year, when he saw a man wearing a balaclava. At first he assumed he had his face covered in relation to the riots last summer, following the murder of three children in Southport.

But a few minutes later after he’d returned to the shop, the same balaclava clad man burst into the store. Dewhurst jumped onto the counter brandishing a ‘large kitchen knife’, ordering his victim to open the till.

Terrified, he complied with the robber who then fled the shop after grabbing about £1,000 in cash.

The police were called in, and were able to plot Dewhurst’s movements on CCTV footage from his home, to the shop and back to his home. Cell site phone data also confirmed his movements.

Nine days later, on August 16, Dewhurst struck at another convenience store, this time at a shop on Higher Market Street in Farnworth. White, who was initially thought to have been an innocent shopper, was seen entering shortly before Dewhurst.

The thug, again brandishing a large kitchen knife and wearing a balaclava, demanded cash from the till. The shopkeepers, a man and wife, tried to reach safety in the back area of the shop but Dewhurst ordered the man to open the till.

He got away with an unknown amount of cash. At some stage Dewhurst dropped the knife in the shop, and it was seized by officers. Analysis of CCTV footage later revealed that White had been involved. He had opened the door for Dewhurst and then ran off in the same direction.

The pair had also been in phone contact with each other after the robbery. When police went to arrest Dewhurst at his home, they found burnt trainers in the back garden.

The victim in the first robbery said: “I feared for my life and didn’t know if I was going to get out of the store. I have never experienced anything like this before in my life, and I didn’t know what would happen to me.

The second victim said: “It was a terrifying experience, and not something I had expected would happen to me.”

The shopkeeper said he feared he and his wife would be seriously injured or even killed. Defending Dewhurst, David Toal said that the defendant had no criminal record until the age of 25, when he split with his partner and the mother of his children.

He lost his job and home and became addicted to drugs, Mr Toal said. He said Dewhurst has written a letter of apology to his victims and is now drug free, the barrister said. Wayne Jackson, for White, said that the defendant has previously shown he can turn his life around.

Dewhurst, of Gower Street, Bolton, pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and two counts of possessing a bladed article. White, also of Gower Street, Bolton, was found guilty of one count of robbery. Judge Matthew Corbett-Jones jailed Dewhurst for six years, while White was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison.