Raider in terrifying robbery jailed after pensioner injured
A robber has been jailed for nine years and 10 months after a raid in which a 68-year-old woman was knocked out with an iron bar in her own home.
Nathaniel Blackwood-Fox and two accomplices broke down the front door of the house in which the Vietnamese victim – who spoke no English – was legitimately living in Mill Street, Brierley Hill.
They then burst into the property in which the woman was alone.
“The robbers were armed with a knife and an iron bar,” said Mr Richard Franck, prosecuting, who continued: “She was grabbed by the neck, pushed into the living room, hit with the iron bar and had a knife held to her throat.
She kept saying ‘No English’ but they took no notice and literally tore the house apart.”
The defendant – a 39-year-old former hospital porter – and the other raiders grabbed £500 cash and valuables.
They also discovered an old safe which they brought downstairs and ordered the woman to give them the code to open it.
She did not know the combination but could not make this clear because of the language barrier.
They took three rings from her fingers before knocking her out with an iron bar.
When she came round she raised the alarm and forensic experts later found the defendant’s fingerprint on a box in which the family kept a Bible and he was arrested.
His two accomplices are still at large. He pleaded guilty to robbery on the grounds that he was not armed and did not use any violence during the raid.
Mr Richard Davenport, defending, said: “He hoped to make easy money but got nothing ruining the life of the victim but and destroying his own.”
Blackwood-Fox from Truro Close, Rowley Regis was told by Judge James Burbidge QC: “It was an attack of every householder’s worst fears.”
