Four years for mobile phone thief

A former architect's assistant was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey today, 24 hours after the Lord Chief Justice's call for tougher sentences on mobile phone muggers.

Dean Healey, 23, and an unknown accomplice had set upon a 16-year-old boy in a Streatham street, snatching his £130 phone - bought only weeks earlier - and his wallet.

Lee Staples, had just come from an office party when he was beaten to the ground and left covered in so much blood his mother could not recognise him.

Today Judge Valerie Pearlman told Healey: "The sentence I pass is to protect the public from you and act as a deterrent to others and to show that this type of offence will not be tolerated.

"This, as the courts repeat, is a very prevalent offence, in this case aggravated by the fact that there were two of you, although against that I take into account there was no weapon.

"Nevertheless I regard this as a bad case of gratuitous street violence by two of you for gain."

Yesterday Lord Woolf laid down tough new sentencing guidelines for mobile phone muggers with a minimum 18-month sentence even if the defendant was young, unarmed and with no previous convictions. The country's most senior judge said that muggers who use violence or weapons can expect terms of five years or more. Just before Healey's trial at the Old Bailey last month a woman of 19 was shot in the head in east London by a mugger who had targeted her mobile.

Healey, of Streatham Hill, had pleaded not guilty to robbery but the jury had taken just over an hour to convict him. The court was told that Mr Staples, an office junior at the South London Press, had left the Hog's Head pub in Streatham to go to a cash dispensing machine.

Healey and a man known only as "Patrick" saw him use his mobile and pocket the money and, after pretending to befriend him, launched their attack.

Mr Staples told the court: "I got pushed in the chest by the one calling himself Patrick who said 'Give me your phone'.

"Dean then punched me several times in the face and then Patrick punched me a couple of times. My phone was in the left pocket of my blazer. Dean went through my pockets and took my wallet before they both ran off."

He was only saved from an even worse beating when his friends ran to his rescue forcing Healey and his accomplice to flee.

Mr Staples suffered a black eye, cuts and bruises in the attack which his mother Lorraine Crawley described as "every mother's nightmare". She added: "I could not recognise him. He was covered in blood. This has affected him badly. He cannot go anywhere on his own now."

Three days after the attack police raided Healey's home and forensic experts later found blood on his jeans which matched the victim's DNA.

Healey has previous convictions for aggravated vehicle taking, driving while disqualified and cautions for cannabis possession. Since leaving the architect's office he had been working at a car repair workshop.

An estimated 70 per cent of Britons own a mobile phone and thefts are said to be running at around one million a year.