Morley bike robber threatened cycling couple with angle grinder outside Wetherspoon pub
A drug-addicted man threatened a couple with an angle grinder as he stole their bike from outside a pub.
Former plasterer John Conroy was cutting through the lock of the £750 electric bike in Morley when the man and woman returned.
He admitted a charge of robbery at Leeds Crown Court and was jailed for more than three years.
The cycling pair had been on a ride and stopped at the Wetherspoon-owned Picture House on Queen Street on the evening of September 16 last year.
Returning to the bike stand, they saw sparks coming from the area and Conroy kneeling down.
They shouted at him to stop and he turned to them holding the rotating, jagged-edge tool and told them: “Stay back or I will use it on you.”
He then cut through the lock and took off on the bike. The male unlocked his bike and pursued him along King Street.
Conroy went over the handlebars at one point but got back on the bike and told the male: “Come near me and I will kill you.”
Another male appeared and told Conroy to “give him the bike”, suggesting he had an accomplice, although the male’s identity remains unknown.
Conroy then rode off again.
He was later identified by CCTV and arrested but gave a no-comment interview.
He appeared in court over a video link from HMP Leeds where he has been held on remand for the past five months.
The 33-year-old has 15 previous convictions including violence and theft.
Mitigating, Adrian Pollard said: “He understands it will have to be imprisonment.
“He knows actions have consequences and he has to pay the price.”
He said that Conroy, of Bellbrooke Avenue, Harehills, was married with two children and had a steady plastering job.
But when his relationship broke down, he turned to drugs.
Mr Pollard said: “From that point on, for a period in excess of a year, his whole focus was on his addiction.
“He just feels disgusted at how he has behaved and how they [the couple] must have felt.”
The judge, Recorder Simon Jackson KC described it as an “appalling offence”.
He jailed Conroy for 40 months and gave him a five-year criminal behaviour order.