Starbeck post office worker held at 'knifepoint' by hooded robber who threatened to stab her

A summer street party is coming to Harrogate town centre - here's everything you need to knowGlyn Adams, 48, marched into Starbeck Post Office and told the “petrified” worker: “Give me your money or I will stab you.”

He then went behind the counter and tried unsuccessfully to open the tills, prosecutor Heather Gilmore told York Crown Court.

Adams - who was high on drugs but is understood to have been bluffing about having a knife - marched out of the shop and went straight to the Lloyds Pharmacy next-door in High Street, where he again told staff he had a knife and demanded they hand money over.

He then grabbed the till and took between £100 and £200 before fleeing the scene. However, he was stopped in his tracks by the post office worker who grabbed the thief and wrestled him to the ground despite believing that he had a knife.

Police arrived on the scene and arrested Adams, who was charged with robbery and attempted robbery. Adams, of Avenue Grove, Harrogate, refused to answer police questions but later admitted the offences.

He appeared for sentence via video link on Tuesday. Ms Gilmore said Adams had a long criminal record including a previous robbery and over 120 thefts - mainly shoplifting to fund his heroin addiction.

At the time of the incident in Starbeck on March 26, he had just been released from prison for previous thieving. When he threatened to stab the post office worker, he pulled his hood up and demanded she hand over cash.

Adams’s defence counsel said her client had mental-health problems and had not been taking his medication at the time of the robbery.

But Judge Andrew Stubbs QC condemned the cowardly criminal for threatening law-abiding staff with violence out of his “desperation” to get money for drugs.

The judge cited Adams’s “terrible” criminal record and “the fear that you caused the people who were working in the shops, providing a useful public service both in the post office and in the pharmacy”.

Jailing Adams for three years and four months, Mr Stubbs said the long sentence was intended to protect the public “from your continued criminality and dishonesty."

Mr Stubbs praised the post office worker. He said she had shown “extreme bravery” in wrestling Adams to the ground “when she had every reason to believe that the defendant had a knife."

He said the Post Office worker would receive £300 from public funds for her bravery and public-spiritedness.