"Being the cowardly scum that you are, you left him on the floor," judge tells Sheffield robber who invaded disabled man's home and took his phone

The 58-year-old man, who has cerebral palsy, let his cat out of his supported bungalow in Darnall at 8.30pm, and returned to the living room when Amaraze Khan walked in.

Khan asked him if he had anything he could take, but when the man said "no," Khan grabbed his £240 mobile phone and fled, prosecutor Kevin Jones said.

Although the man can't remember how, he found himself lying on the floor.

"He was in a state of shock and struggled to reach the landline," said Mr Jones. "He called the police and they arrived ten minutes later."

The victim was not injured. In a statement he said: "I don't understand why people think they have the right to walk into someone's home and rob them. They wouldn't like it if it happened to them."

He now feels unsafe and “like a prisoner in his own home,” Sheffield Crown Court heard on Thursday.

Khan was tracked down through DNA found on the handle of the wheelchair, and denied the robbery, which happened on November 18, 2019.

He has 16 previous convictions, including five burglaries between 2002 and 2011, and he was jailed for 40 months in 2014 for committing a "horrifying" robbery.

Ian West, mitigating, said a "minimal level of force" was used, unlike Khan's previous robbery, and "no serious harm was caused.”

"All I can argue is that there has been a six-year hiatus," he said. "He doesn't seek to justify it. Indeed he couldn't if he tried."

Khan, 34, of Greenland Court, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to robbery.

Judge David Dixon told him: “You knew you were targeting a clearly vulnerable man. Being the cowardly scum that you are you left him on the floor.

“If he didn't have the mobility he has he might have stayed there. He might well have died. That is how depraved and low this crime is.

“You would have used untold violence to get what you wanted. You can shake your head all you like. Shaking your head counts for nothing with me.”

The judge sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in prison and told him: “You are an extremely dangerous man.”

Read the latest cases from Sheffield Crown Court here.

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