Store robber threatened to infect staff with HIV
STAFF at a Birmingham supermarket were terrified when a robber threatened to infect them with HIV as he held up a Co-op store, a court heard.
Drug addict Oneil Briscoe first targeted the Co-op in Church Lane, Handsworth, on November 8 when he stuffed items into his rucksack while waving an uncapped syringe at a frightened worker.
He then returned to rob the shop three more times between January 5 and 20, each time terrorising staff and on one occasion brandishing a screwdriver at workers.
Briscoe, 29, of no fixed address, was sentenced to eight years and three months in jail after being convicted of six robberies and three counts of possession of a blade or pointed weapon. In addition he was also banned from the centre of Handsworth for seven years with a Criminal Behaviour Order exclusion order.The court heard that Briscoe also targeted Applegreen petrol station in Holyhead Road where he shoved a sales assistant aside as he took cans of drink before again using a needle to threaten staff as he stole from the Farmfoods store on the same road.
He is now behind bars after Lozells and East Handsworth police officers used CCTV images and local knowledge to link the thief to the offences and arrest him from an address in the Handsworth area a few days after he committed the January offences.
Cathryn Orchard, prosecuting, told the court: “The defendant got an uncapped needle out of his pocket and swung it towards the security guard missing him by inches.”
She said it narrowly missed one of the guard’s colleagues and went on: “The defendant told them: ‘I am going to stab you. I have HIV.’
“Nobody was going to challenge him in those circumstances.”