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August 2023
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The teenage pair, aged 16 [A] and 17 [B], appeared before Willesden Youth Court on Wednesday, 12 May for sentencing after they both pleaded guilty to four counts of robbery.
Both teens were handed a youth rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and they will be expected to participate in rehabilitation activities for 91 days. Both girls will also be subject to electronic monitoring and a curfew for six months. They are excluded from entering outside a three mile radius of their home addresses for three months. They are also banned from entering the London Borough of Camden and from having contact with each other for 12 months. Both girls will be subject to regular supervision meetings for 24 months [A] and 18 months [B]. Over the course of approximately two hours on Tuesday, 23 March the teenagers carried out four robberies, the victims in each case were women who were punched and kicked and then either robbed of cash or forced to withdraw money from cash machines. The first robbery occurred at around 19:15hrs. The victim was walking towards Swiss Cottage station along Belsize Road, NW6 when she was approached by the 16-year-old [A] who asked the victim for help looking for an address on the victim’s phone. The victim tried to help [A] but became suspicious when she called 17-year-old [B] over and asked to put the address into the phone herself. At this point [B] grabbed the phone from the victim's hand and held it up high above her head so that the victim could not reach it. [A] then threatened the victim and demanded she hand over her bank card. The victim gave them a £10 note before running away from the pair. A nearby food delivery driver helped the victim call police and get her phone and money back from the two girls after he saw the incident unfold. The second robbery happened at approximately 20.55hrs in Heath Street near to the junction with Holly Bush Vale. The defendants used the same routine as with their first victim on two women they approached coming out of a supermarket. As one of the victims typed a postcode into her phone, she became aware of the girls standing close to her. The victim asked them to step back due to Covid. One of the girls then snatched the phone out of the victim’s hand, threw it on the floor and began stamping on it. They asked the victim if she had any bank cards and the victim said that she did not. They demanded she go to a cash point with them and she continued to tell them that she didn’t have any cards on her. The victim attempted to get away but [A] and [B] followed her across the road. As the pair caught up with the two women, one of them then threatened the victim’s friend with a glass bottle which she held near the woman’s face. The defendants then ran off in the direction of Hampstead tube station before carrying out their third robbery. On Flask Walk, NW3 they approached a woman, again asking her to help them by finding an address on her phone. The victim was suspicious of the pair and refused. As she attempted to walk away the pair grabbed her by her rucksack and pulled her back. [A] punched the victim in her left upper arm and pushed her against the wall causing her to hit her head. [A] and [B] then rifled through the victim’s bag, took her purse out and removed two bank cards. The two girls then made the victim go to a cash point with them on Hampstead High Road. They demanded the victim to give them £600. When the victim told them she did not have that much and they told her to give them whatever she had. The victim handed over £40, asking them to take the money and leave. The pair took £5 from the victim’s purse and then made off in the direction of Hampstead station. The victim went to a supermarket Heath Street where she saw a group of women, the previous robbery victims, and they realised that the same thing had happened to each of them. While the women were stood outside in the supermarket at around 21:10hrs they spotted the [A] and [B] in the distance outside Hampstead tube station attacking a woman who was on the floor. They called police. At approximately 21.10hrs outside Hampstead tube station [A] an [B] asked a fourth woman to put a postcode in her phone for them. She refused when the pair asked if they could type it into her phone themselves. One of the girls then snatched the phone out of the victim’s hand and then pushed the victim to the floor. The girls then carried on attacking the victim as she lay on the floor. Passers-by intervened, stopped the assault and returned the victim’s property to her. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Service’s Venice Investigations Team immediately launched an investigation and tracked down the two teenagers through a combination of examination of CCTV footage and witness statements. On Tuesday, 20 April a 16-year-old girl [A] and a 17-year-old girl [B] were arrested at residential addresses in Barnet on suspicion of committing four counts of robbery. They were taken to a north London police station and were charged with the offences on Wednesday, 21 April. Detective Sergeant Alan Biggs from the Operation Venice Investigations Team said: “These two teenage girls systematically targeted women, threatening and attacking them in an effort to rob them. They planned their crimes to take advantage of the good nature of women who thought they were helping two lost teenage girls. “I want to pay tribute to the victims in this case, particularly for the support that they showed for each other. I also want to commend the passers-by who intervened in these incidents for their brave actions.” + The key things you can do to help prevent robbery are:
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