Jeans mugger facing prison term

A reveller who mugged a stranger for his smart jeans after being turned away from a nightclub has been told he faces a jail sentence.

Phillip Northmore, 25, pushed his victim into bushes and then ordered him to take off his trousers.

After taking the jeans he handed back £60 and a mobile phone to victim Matthew Oakley, 18.

Northmore pleaded guilty at Plymouth Crown Court to robbery. Sentence has been deferred for six months.

You will save £1,000 to pay compensation for the utter humiliation you inflicted Judge Paul Darlow

But the court was told Northmore was traced from DNA inside his tracksuit trousers he had left behind before heading off for a night's clubbing.

Northmore, an unemployed former solider, was told he faced being sent to jail for 14 months unless he stays out of trouble and off alcohol for the next six months.

Judge Paul Darlow also ordered Northmore to pay his victim £1,000 for the shame and humiliation he caused his victim in the attack.

"This case has an added element of humiliation with the young victim being left without his trousers and having to put on somebody else's filthy old ones," the judge told him.

"You say you have changed and stopped drinking and sorted yourself out. I am not convinced about that but I am going to give you time to convince me.

"We will meet again in six months, in which time you will save £1,000 to pay compensation for the utter humiliation you inflicted on this man."

Mr Paul Frost, prosecuting, said Mr Oakley had been out drinking with friends three days before Christmas last year and was on his way home when he was set on in an alley near Plymouth's Union Street.

'Kill' threat

"Mr Oakley realised he was being followed," he said.

"Northmore came over to him with another man and they both pushed him to the chest and he fell backwards into bushes."

Mr Frost told the court when Mr Oakley twice tried to get up, he was told by Northmore 'you're lucky we don't kill you, give me your jeans'.

Northmore told police he had drunk 15 pints of beer and rated his level of drunkenness as between six and eight out of ten.

Mr Iain Leadbetter, defending, said the drinking culture Northmore had learned in the army was to blame for the "unpleasant" incident.