Husband and wife shopkeepers see off robber who staggers off and takes car from young woman

A couple successfully defended their convenience store from a robber who then staggered off down the road and drove off in a young woman's car after she was distracted by his accomplice. Curtis Rowe and the other man had been caught on CCTV cameras shuffling into the Leicester Food and Wines store in Welford Road, Leicester city centre, while drunk and high on drugs at 7am.

Both men wandered around the shop, grabbing items and putting them on the counter, including bread and breakfast cereal. The accomplice tried to enter a private area of the building and the male shopkeeper went to stop him while his wife was at the till.

There was then a confrontation involving the male shopkeeper and Rowe, 45, who repeatedly grabbed at the middle-aged man's throat, trying to steal his gold chain. Rowe then went to grab items off the counter and stuff them in his pockets and continuously shoved the male shopkeeper who was trying to stop him.

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The woman then pulled out a baseball bat from behind the counter and flung it at Rowe and she then rushed around to help her husband push the two men out of the door. The drunken men made a brief attempt to force their way back inside but then gave up and wandered towards nearby King Street.

In King Street the young woman was behind the wheel of her parked car with the engine running, putting an address in the satnav when Rowe's accomplice opened the passenger door and grabbed her handbag off the passenger seat and fled with it. It contained £100 cash and bank cards.

She got out to give chase and as she did Rowe jumped in behind the wheel and drove off in the car. He drove the car around the corner - about 350 yards away - and got out, grabbed armfuls of her possessions from the boot of the vehicle and went off with them.

He Rowe obtained woman's bank cards from his accomplice and made two attempts to buy a £96 bottle of spirits from a nearby off-licence. But the cards had already been cancelled by the young woman so the attempts were unsuccessful.

He was arrested by Leicestershire Police and later pleaded guilty to attempted robbery, taking a vehicle without consent and two counts of attempted fraud. He appeared at Leicester Crown Court for sentencing this week.

The incidents had taken place on Wednesday, November 15 last year, and the court heard that at that time Rowe, of Ipswich Close, Beaumont Leys, Leicester, already had convictions for 52 previous offences on his record, including robbery. He had been on post-release supervision after a previous prison sentence when the latest crimes were committed.

His offending had stopped in 2011 when he started a serious relationship but then started again in 2020 after he was stabbed and started using cocaine to help with the pain, leading to the break-up of his relationship.

Priya Bakshi, representing Rowe, said the two men had not entered the shop intending to take anything. She said: "There was no intention from the outset - he lost his temper, wrongly."

She added that the taking of the car was not a co-ordinated effort by the two men but an opportunistic crime after the young woman chased after the other drunken man. She said her client was "calm and timid" when sober and only committed the crimes because he was drunk and high on drugs.

Judge William Harbage KC said the experiences had been frightening for the shopkeepers and the young woman. He said the most serious offence was the attempt to grab the shopkeeper's gold chain.

He said: "You started grabbing towards his throat. You made repeated grabs, trying to get at his gold chain.

"You did not succeed but the chain was broken. He was very scared and says anything could have happened and he could see both of you were on drugs.

"It must have been extremely frightening. The shopkeepers in this sort of shop are very vulnerable to this sort of attack."

Rowe was jailed for three years. The court heard that Rowe's accomplice had previously pleaded guilty to theft and was awaiting sentencing.