A thief who struck three times this year in multiple burglaries and robberies, has been jailed for a total of seven years and six months.
Anton Maher, of no fixed address, smashed his way through to a house on Carnwath Road in Sutton Coldfield in June and ransacked the property, leaving with an array of sentimental jewellery, watches, champagne and binoculars.
Then, in the early hours of Saturday 25 July, the 28-year-old approached two men on Temple Row in Birmingham city centre and asked them for a cigarette. When they refused, he began using a racist slur to provoke them, before pulling out an imitation firearm from his waistband and threatening them with it.
He dropped the gun after hitting it off one of their head’s and then ran off with one of their phones.
The quick-thinking men picked the gun up and came to us with a detailed account of their traumatic experience.
Maher was arrested soon after in the city centre, where he was found with the stolen phone. He denied he had swiped it, and said he also had a similar phone, and had thought it was his that was dropped during a fight with some random people. He was charged for that offence as well as the burglary in Sutton Coldfield, where forensic officers had found traces of his blood.
It was later found that he had also burgled a house in Skip Lane, Walsall on Tuesday 7 July, where a number of personal items were taken.
At Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday 1 October, Maher pleaded guilty to the offences and was jailed for a total of seven years and six months. He will serve his time concurrently for robbery, possession of an imitation firearm and burglary.