Wannabe burglar held knife to OAP's throat and gagged him with wire as he demanded PIN number

A thug who broke in to a pensioner's flat at 2.30am, gagged his victim with wire and held a knife to his throat, as he demanded cash.

Arron Jeff had his XL Bully dog 'Luna' with him, when he climbed into the Redcar flat and tried to force the pensioner, who lives alone, to withdraw cash from an ATM. When the victim said he didn't know his PIN number, the 24-year-old told him: "You are really getting on my wick now mate.

"See this flat, I'll tie you to a chair and set it alight, if you don't give me your PIN." But the police were listening, as the pensioner had dialled 999 before dropping his phone on the floor, as Jeff climbed in, on August 7.

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The line stayed open and the victim could be heard gagging and saying: "You're threatening me with a knife now, are you?". Jeff replied: "What number do you put in the bank machine?

"Stop playing, you need to remember before I flush you down the toilet in pieces." The pensioner was recorded shouting: "Get out, you bastard.

"I'm trying to go to bed. I don't have any money!" Jeff then told the man that he owed him £20 "for fixing his TV."

The police arrived and rang the doorbell, but Jeff fled. His DNA was found in a blood stain on his victim's jumper.

The pensioner had moved into the ground floor flat in Dormanstown months earlier, to be near his wife who had gone into a care home. The victim told police that he had been "sitting in his chair when a man came in and put an electrical cable in his mouth and a knife to his throat, and demanded money."

Jeff told police that he had helped the man unpack and put pictures up on his walls when he had moved in; and said the man owed him £20. He said he was passing at 2.30am and saw the pensioner "having a fit" and got in to put him in the recovery position.

Jeff, of Micklow Close Redcar, later admitted attempted burglary. He has previous convictions for robbery and 17 separate assaults. He had been released from a prison sentence for theft, six weeks earlier, in June.

'Life has not been kind to him'

John Nixon, mitigating, told the court that Jeff was homeless at the time, "living a miserable existence. Life has not been kind to him. His difficult upbringing had a profound affect on him, emotionally.

"He was in a relationship and had a child, but social services were involved and he had to leave his partner and the child."

Mr Nixon said that the offence had "lasted 15 minutes and he did not use the knife to inflict injury". He added: "This business with the gag lasted for moments only."

But Judge Chris Smith told Jeff: "The sentence I impose today will be the longest you've had to endure. Your vulnerable victim was home alone. When your efforts to demand money didn't work, you threatened and bullied that elderly man.

"This court can all too easily imagine the sheer terror your victim felt; it's unthinkable that he has not been affected. It's perhaps a merciful thing that he can't remember much of what happened to him."

Jeff was handed an extended sentence totalling 11-years-and-nine-months. His sentence is made up of a prison term of six-years-and-nine-months; and five years in the community.

He will serve two-thirds of the custodial element, before the parole board will consider if it is safe to release him.

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