'Habitual criminal' left worker fearing for her life during 'terrifying' Sheffield laundrette robbery

This is the face of a ‘habitual criminal’ who took part in a robbery which left a member of staff at a Sheffield laundrette feeling ‘terrified’ and ‘fearing for her life’.

When defendant, Micheal Lovell, acted as an 'accomplice' in a robbery at a laundrette on Handsworth Road in the Handsworth area of Sheffield on August 22, 2023, he already had an extensive criminal record of 65 previous offences, including four convictions for robbery. 

Lovell, aged 31, committed the robbery with a second male who is yet to be apprehended, and prosecutor Joseph Bell said it was the Crown’s case that the pair carried out the crime as part of a ‘joint enterprise’. 

Sheffield Crown Court heard how there was a single member of staff on the ground floor when Lovell, of no fixed abode, and the second male barged into the laundrette in the late afternoon. 

In an affecting statement to the court, the staff member said she was ‘really frightened’ and ‘feared for her life’. 

In addition to the fear she felt for her own safety, the staff member said she was also concerned both for the welfare of a colleague working upstairs on their own, and for that of the laundrette’s customers - many of whom are elderly or vulnerable - if they were to enter the premises as the robbery was taking place. 

She said she did not know if the two men ‘had any weapons or what would happen if they got to her’.

Describing the conduct of Lovell and the second robber, The Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, told Lovell during a hearing held on December 11, 2023: “You were the accomplice to the principal offender, but you took a full role. The main threats were perpetrated by the other male who is yet to be apprehended. 

“You went, with this other individual, to a laundry in Sheffield.

"You were present throughout when serious threats of violence were being uttered towards a shop assistant. 

“She was terrified by what you and the other man did…the till was stolen, money was taken, your co-accused jumped over the counter.”

Mr Bell told the court that after jumping over the counter, the second male ‘aggressively’ shook the till, before ‘demanding’ the staff member open it, and shouting he wanted ‘all of the money now’.

Around £150 in cash was taken in the robbery, along with the till valued at £200, bringing the total financial loss caused to the laundrette to £350. 

Lovell was subsequently identified after being arrested by the police the day after the robbery for an unrelated matter, and was also selected during an identity parade. 

He pleaded guilty to an offence of robbery at an earlier hearing. 

Mr Bell said that in addition to his previous four convictions for robbery, Lovell also has a total of 14 offences of violence on his record. 

After Lovell’s criminal history was detailed to the court, Judge Richardson remarked: “This is a man who’s a habitual criminal’. 

Defending, James Burley said that while he acknowledged his client has an ‘abominable’ history of offending, three of the four robberies on Lovell’s record were committed while he was a youth offender. 

Mr Burley said Lovell entered his guilty plea at a relatively early stage at the plea hearing, adding that the second male - who was living in a B&B with Lovell at the time of the robbery - has ‘somewhat of an overbearing personality,’ which was ‘the reason’ for his client’s ‘participation’ in the offence. 

“He entered the care system at a young age and has had difficulties throughout his life,” Mr Burley continued.

Judge Richardson jailed Lovell for three years, and described the robbery as a ‘serious offence of its kind’.