A MUGGER who targets his victims on buses has been jailed for 27 months for his third robbery offence.

Shamraze Hussain, 24, of Carlisle Terrace, Manningham, Bradford, followed a 17-year-old girl, seizing her mobile phone as she travelled to visit her aunt on February 22.

He was captured on CCTV boarding a bus in Sunbridge Road, Bradford, only hours after he was released from a police cell where he had spent the night after being arrested for motoring offences.

Prosecutor Giles Bridge told Bradford Crown Court today Hussain was let out of the police station at 7.41am.

By 10am, he had followed his victim off the bus at Manningham and asked to borrow her phone.

When she refused, he pursued her, barged into her and grabbed it, breaking two of her finger nails.

The teenager arrived at her aunt's house extremely upset, with tears running down her face, the court heard.

CCTV from inside the bus identified Hussain, who had previous convictions for battery, harassment and making a threat to kill.

In 2009, aged 19, he was locked up for 21 months for attempting to rob a man of a winning roulette ticket on a bus.

He was caught on CCTV badgering and harassing him for a £1,000 ticket he had won on a gaming machine.

Two years earlier, Hussain was sentenced to an 18 month detention and training order for robbing a cashier at William Hill in Carlisle Road, Manningham.

He also had a conviction in 2012 for theft from the person when he asked to borrow a woman's phone in the street and made off with it.

In mitigation, Hussain's barrister, David McGonigal, said he was suffering from an addiction and experienced withdrawal symptoms when he was let out of the police station early in the morning.

He had never used a weapon to commit his crimes or any serious violence.

But Judge Jonathan Rose said Hussain had a dreadful record of offending.

Jailing him the judge said: "The public needs protection from bad people like you and they will get it by way of the prison sentence I will impose."