A 26-YEAR-OLD man who carried out a terrifying knifepoint hold-up at the Co-op store in Baildon has been jailed for more than three years.

Cannabis-user Luke Butler, who has been detained in the past due to his mental health problems, armed himself with a knife before going into the shop on a Sunday afternoon last October.

Prosecutor Abdul Shakoor told Bradford Crown Court yesterday that Butler waited for other customers to leave before he approached the sales counter and waved the knife "frantically" towards assistant Romessa Ahmed.

Mr Shakoor said Butler, who had no previous convictions, tried to get into the till using the knife, but the complainant opened it for him and he grabbed £47.

Butler, of Woodside, Shipley, put the cash in a supermarket bag and went straight to his parents' home nearby where he was seen to be "agitated and vomiting".

Mr Shakoor said Butler then went to a neighbour's home and admitted being involved in a hold-up and showed the neighbour the money he had stolen from the shop.

The court heard that Butler's father contacted the police and the defendant was arrested.

In her victim impact statement the complainant described how she had felt scared during the robbery and had struggled to get on with her life since the incident on the afternoon of October 30.

Mr Shakoor said he did not have any further information about whether the complainant had returned to work at the store.

Butler, who was said to have been detained due to his mental health issues in 2011, 2013 and 2015, pleaded guilty last November to offences of robbery and possessing the knife.

Solicitor advocate Alistair Bateman, for Butler, said people with mental health problems often resorted to the use of illegal substances and alcohol as a form of self-medication and he said reports on his client indicated that he would be "very vulnerable" in custody.

But Recorder Eric Elliott QC said the shop assistant had been terrified at the sight of a knifeman and added:"She, in those circumstances, was subjected to two minutes of absolute terror."

He said the offence was a very serious matter and Butler had deliberately targeted a lone shop worker.

Recorder Elliott said he was impressed by a letter from Butler and accepted that his remorse and sorrow were genuine.

But he said he would be failing in his public duty if he did not impose a custodial sentence.

The judge said his starting point for the sentence was five years in jail, but Butler's guilty plea entitled him to a reduction of a third which meant he would receive a prison term of three years and four months.

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