Six years for mobile phone mugger

A teenage mobile phone mugger who ambushed two people on a canal towpath has been sentenced to six years at a young offender institution.

Abdullahi Fidow, 16, attacked a man and woman in separate incidents as they walked along a canal towpath between Ealing and Southall. The tough sentence follows the ruling of Britain's most senior judge that all mobile phone thieves face imprisonment regardless of age.

Fidow's first victim, 19-year-old Karen Delaney, was so traumatised by the assault, in which she was punched and kicked, that she could not leave her home for 10 days.

In the second robbery days later, Fidow confronted David Bender wielding a 2ft long baton. Mr Bender was threatened and ordered to hand over cash and his mobile phone.

At Reading Crown Court, Judge Christopher Critchlow, told the Somalian refugee: "Men like you must realise the courts will impose severe sentences for such antisocial crimes on vulnerable people who you have a complete lack of respect for. Citizens should be protected and to be able to walk around without fear of these things happening to them."

The jury was told how Miss Delaney was walking to work along the Grand Union Canal towpath on 29 August last year. David Cadman, prosecuting, said she realised she was being followed by two men, one of whom was Fidow. He said: "She felt a tug on her shoulder bag. She fell to the floor still holding her bag.

"The defendant began pulling her hair and telling her to give her the bag and there was a struggle. She was being punched and kicked in the stomach while still on the floor. She then allowed them to take her bag."

The handbag contained a mobile phone and cash.

Mr Cadman said Miss Delaney returned to the spot on 9 September with her mother and boyfriend in a bid to find her property. She saw Fidow with a gang of other teenagers along the same towpath and her boyfriend chased him and he was arrested by police.

Earlier that day, Fidow had robbed Mr Bender, said Mr Cadman. Fidow, of Acton, denied two counts of robbery.

Last month the Lord Chief Justice said such robberies were "undermining the criminal justice system". Lord Woolf said: "Those who commit them have got to understand they are going to be punished severely and custodial sentences will be the only option available to the courts unless there are very exceptional circumstances indeed."