A notorious YouTube prankster from Gravesend is behind bars after staging a “terrifying” fake art heist in the National Portrait Gallery – filmed just nine days after 39 people were massacred by an IS terrorist with an AK47 on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia.

Daniel Jarvis, 27, was joined by two accomplices as the trio pulled full-length tights over their heads and shouted “let’s get the paintings” in the video – which was filmed on July 5 last year.

One woman passed out as dozens of terrified art lovers fled the Wolfson Gallery during the stunt.

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National Portrait Gallery

Jarvis, of Whitehill Road, Ebenezer Mensah, 29, and Helder Gomes, 23, smuggled the “ridiculous” paintings into the BP Portrait Award Exhibition in bin bags – and then pretended they were robbing high-value artworks as they ran amok in the “immature” stunt.

Endrit Ferizolli, 20, used a speaker to let off alarm sounds as Dahn Van Le, 31, filmed the ensuing chaos for the group’s YouTube channel Trollstation – which has 718,000 subscribers.

Later that day the pranksters staged another fake robbery at the Tate Britain gallery in Millbank, central London, with an unknown female who was thought to be in on the “warped” joke.

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Jarvis (left) with (top, left-right): Vanh Lee, Ferizolli and (bottom, left-right): Mensah, Gomes.

Gomes ran into the gallery and dragged the woman out in a headlock as Jarvis and Mensah grabbed the paintings for another viral video.

Jarvis, Mensah, Ferizolli and Gomes all admitted two counts of using threatening or abusive words and behaviour causing fear of unlawful violence at City of London Magistrates’ Court today (May 16).

“The defendants in this case are part of a group - that believes it is amusing to film acts impacting on the public and then upload those onto the internet,” District Judge Mike Snow said during sentencing.

“Their sense of humour is warped and immature. It was quite foreseeable that those attending the gallery not being in on the joke and being familiar with the recent scenes of people running for their lives from terrorist acts would be terrified.”

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Judge Snow said the men had caused “high levels of fear of violence”, a “risk of death or injury” during the stampede from the National Portrait Gallery, and sought to “humiliate” the victims by “recording their terrified reactions to upload onto the internet”.

Maya Chopra, defending Jarvis, said: “There’s a lack of malicious intent here, it was poorly-thought out. It was meant to be a joke, it didn’t go as planned.”

However, Judge Snow replied: “Are you sure the humour doesn’t lie in the fact that people laugh at other people’s fear, and that’s where you get the hits on YouTube?

“You could go along to a Frankie Boyle event and film people laughing, couldn’t you? But that wouldn’t make good viewing on YouTube.”

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Jarvis with comedian Dapper Laughs and his fellow Trollstation-ers

He added: “I’m still trying to get this joke, I know I’m old and fusty.

“If it’s just a Keystone Cops sort of prank with people running into each other why does there need to be an alarm?”

Jarvis was jailed for 20 weeks, whilst Ferizolli, of Wakemans Hill Avenue, Colindale, north-west London, got 16 weeks behind bars.

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Gomes, of Grantham Road, Stockwell, south-west London, and Mensah, of Sumner Road, Peckham, south-east London, were both jailed for 18 weeks.

It’s not the first time in court for many of the group’s members.

Jarvis and Gomes both received three-year football banning orders after running onto the pitch and taking selfies with players during a Tottenham Hotspurs vs Partizan Belgrade match at White Hart Lane on November 27, 2014.

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Daniel Jarvis (back left)

Trollstation founder Van Le is currently serving time in prison for creating bomb scares at bus stops in Lambeth and Southwark when he filmed a 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, dumping a suitcase with a clock inside next to terrified strangers.

Their reactions were viewed 118m times before the video was suspended, and Van Le was jailed for 24 weeks in March.

He received a 12-week sentence, to be served concurrently, for the fake art heists.

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Jarvis terrorising the people of London with a fake sawn-off leg

Meanwhile, Gomes was previously convicted of a public order offence after humiliating a random woman in Pret a Manger on Valentine’s Day last year – in a prank deemed “bullying and frightening” by Judge Snow.

Gomes reportedly pulled a bra, a pair of knickers, and a sex toy out of a bag as he pretended to break up with the stranger.

Prosecutor Katie Weiss said: “He sniffs the underwear and says ‘I used to love this smell, remember when we went to Bangkok? You will never bang this c*** again’.”

Detective Constable Anthony Parker, from the Met's Public Order Crime Team, led the investigation. He said: "The actions of these five men was outrageous.

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"To go into busy public places wearing masks shouting and screaming at a time of heightened awareness of the terrorism threat facing the UK is deplorable.

"The group terrified those visiting the galleries. It is only by pure chance that no one was injured or suffered serious health issues as they fled in what the judge described as a stampede.

"All five men now have a number of weeks in jail to consider just how unfunny their stunts actually were."