A MAN who threatened police with a "nasty looking" imitation hand-gun after holding up a shop, has been jailed for nine years, Kevin Cox, 21, of Windmill Close, Blackheath Rise, was sentenced to six years for robbery and three years for making use of a firearm with intent to resist arrest.

At the Old Bailey on Friday May 1, Judge Giles Forrester told him: "Use of guns, real or imitation, is too prevalent in off-licences and similar places and on the streets of London. It must be a terrifying thing to be confronted with a gun."

The court heard how Cox and two accomplices armed with an imitation handgun held up a store in Clapham Manor Street on Christmas Eve last year. After terrorising the shopkeeper they fled with beer, spirits and over £400 in cash. Police cornered the trio and after a short chase arrested Cory Simms, 18, and Carl Simpson, 21, of Wiltshire Road, Brixton. They were sentenced to six years imprisonment each.

Before he was overpowered, Cox aimed the realistic looking gun and screamed death threats at the unarmed officers. He admitted the robbery and firearm possession charge, and denied threatening police with the gun but was convicted.

Judge Forester told Cox there was no doubt he deserved the longest sentence. "It was a quite separate and different matter when you threatened a number of police officers at a distance and at close range," he said.

"They were doing their best in accordance with their duty and you made use of that firearm to further your escape as best you could."

One of the officers, Detective Constable Martin Peel of the Divisional Robbery Squad based at Clapham, heard the click of the gun as the trigger was pulled and thought it had misfired when aimed at him.

Judge Forrester commended two officers involved in the pursuit of the gun-toting robber. He said: "They acted bravely - they were not to know it was an imitation firearm."

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