Bungling Paddy Power robber sent to jail

26-year-old Umar Mirza walked into a Paddy Power betting shop in Birmingham, England early one weekday morning earlier this year with a fake gun and a badly written note on a betting slip, threatening to shoot the staff if they did not hand over the shop’s cash takings.

Escaping with around GBP 18,000, the would-be robber pulled off his disguising balaclava on leaving the shop and was captured on CCTV. When the tape was reviewed shop staff recognised Mirza as a job applicant who had left his CV with the company when he was rejected.

When police raided Mirza’s home they found the fake gun, the balaclava and even his threatening note, which read “I got a gun. Open the door or I will blast (crossed out) shoot you”.

In court on August 14, Mirza admitted the charges, along with allegations that he had also been present at a different betting shop robbery when a friend had used the same fake gun. On that occasion the shop manager activated an anti-robbery device, the police quickly arrived and the robbery failed.

Mirza was sent to jail for six years, whilst his friend was sentenced to three years and four months after pleading guilty to attempted robbery, possessing an imitation firearm and a knife.

Devon Small, Mirza’s lawyer, said in mitigation that his client was a fork lift driver who had developed a long-standing online gambling addiction over the last three or four years.

He claimed that Mirza had been allowed to run up a GBP 22,500 debt with an unidentified online gambling company over an 11-month period, and owed another GBP 2,000 to another company.

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