June 10, 2019 2.24 pm This story is over 63 months old

Hammer robber threatened to ‘smash shop owner’s head in’

The shop owner had known him since they were teenagers.
Lee Grayson was jailed for five years and three months. Photo: Lincolnshire Police

A man who staged a hold-up at a shop just days after robbing a taxi driver of her takings was jailed for five years and three months at Lincoln Crown Court.

Lee Grayson walked into the Spick and Span store on Golf Road, Mablethorpe armed with a claw hammer and demanded that the owner Thomas Blunt empty the contents of the till.

Catherine Piccardo, prosecuting, said that Grayson threatened to smash the owner’s head in unless he complied.

Miss Piccardo said: “Mr Blunt took him seriously and all of the cash was handed over. A total of £186 was taken.

“Mr Blunt recognised the defendant as he had known him since they were teenagers.

“The defendant said that if Mr Blunt called the police he knew where Mr Blunt lived and he threatened violence.”

Grayson was arrested two days later at a guest house where he was living. He swore at officers when they tried to enter and they went on to force their way inside only to find he had left via a window.

Miss Piccardo said: “A police dog found him hiding in the shed. When officers searched the room he had been lodging in they found the claw hammer.”

The prosecutor told the court that five days before the robbery Grayson held up a taxi driver who picked him up as a fare at 1am.

Miss Piccardo said: “She didn’t want to take him but her control room told her she must. Having delivered him to his destination he opened the front passenger door and asked her in a threatening way for the bag which contained her fares for that night.

“He grabbed her microphone so that she could not talk to her control room and was then successful in taking the bag from her. He took £430 from her.”

The taxi driver identified Grayson because she recognised his Birmingham accent.

The court was told that Grayson had 15 previous convictions for a total of 25 offences and in 2011 was given a three year sentence for robbery.

Grayson, 27, of King’s Court, Mablethorpe, admitted two offences of robbery as a result of the incidents on April 21 and 25, 2019.

Tony Stanford, in mitigation, said: “His guilty plea is backed up by full remorse.

“His explanation is that he fell in with the wrong crowd. They got him into using crack cocaine.

“He says that a few days after his arrest he came back down to earth and realized the horror of what he had done.”