Man who targeted bookies in Edgware and Harrow has sentence reduced on appeal (From Harrow Times)

Man who targeted bookies in Edgware and Harrow has sentence reduced on appeal

1:20pm Wednesday 10th February 2010

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A DRUG addict who raided nine bookmakers in just eight days in Colindale, Edgware and Harrow today had his potentially lifelong jail term overturned.

John Laslett's campaign of robberies at the end of March last year netted him nearly £3,000 and left staff in shops across the area terrified to go to work.

Laslett, 29, of Thirleby Road, Burnt Oak, was given an indefinite jail term for public protection at Harrow Crown Court in September, which meant he would not be freed until he convinced a parole board he is no longer a threat to the public.

However, three judges at the Criminal Appeal Court today decided to replace the term with a conventional six-year sentence, meaning he will qualify for release in three years.

He committed the robberies with accomplices, while one kept a lookout the other would pass a note to counter staff demanding cash.

Some warned the employee would be shot if they did not comply, although no gun was ever produced. However, one witness saw a plastic revolver fall from Laslett's pocket during one raid.

At the hearing Mr Justice Stadlen said Laslett's offending was fuelled by his addiction to crack cocaine, and told the court of his extensive list of previous convictions.

Among those were three of common assault and one of robbery, in which Laslett threatened a 15-year-old boy at knifepoint.

However, the judge said that, although Laslett's offending had "escalated" over the years, he had wrongly been classified as posing a serious continuing threat of harm to the public.

"In those circumstances, it is necessary for us to substitute a determinate sentence in respect of the robberies," the judge concluded.

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