Buckfast thieves who attacked frail shopkeeper escape detention

Two young thugs who attacked a 63-year-old shopkeeper with a heart condition and robbed him of four bottles of Buckfast have escaped being sent to detention.

Filip Ciescinski and Cameron Bradley were tagged under a home curfew for eight months as punishment for the violent attack on Ghulam Habbas at Waz’s in Broxburn, West Lothian.

Livingston Sheriff Court heard it had taken three years for Ciescinski, 19, and his 20 year-old co-accused to face justice for assaulting and robbing the pensioner while he worked.

Ciescinski, from Bathgate, and Bradley, from Blackburn appeared for sentence on Friday after earlier pleading guilty on indictment on the day they were due to stand trial.

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They admitted seizing Mr Habbas ,dragging him to the ground, sitting on top of him and struggling with him before stealing the alcohol worth £18 on 3 April 2019.

They were caught after the pensioner’s son posted CCTV footage of the pair's callous treatment of his dad on social media and they were identified by furious locals, including Bradley’s stepmum.

Roshni Joshi, prosecuting, said Bradley had brought the pensioner to the floor and held him down while Ciescinski grabbed four bottles of Buckfast from a shelf and fled.

Filip Ciescinski (left) and Cameron Bradley (right) pleaded guilty to assaulting and robbing the pensioner in his shop in Broxburn, West Lothian.

She said the mother of a previous co-accused had seen her son drinking Buckfast with the pair in her garden about an hour after the robbery.

Shortly afterwards she was sent the video via Facebook and recognised the accused.

Police were contacted and officers went to her home and cautioned Ciescinski, who replied: “Everything is on video anyway.”

When charged with the robbery he added: “I did steal the Buckie.”

Bradley’s stepmother separately identified him as one of the culprits after she watched the same footage on social media.

Ian Smith, defending Ciescinski, said his client had expressed remorse and, prompted by his mother, had written to the shopkeeper to apologise for what he had done.

Kevin Dugan, representing Bradley, said his client had been diagnosed with behavioural problems caused by emotional and physical abuse during his childhood.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Peter Hammond told both accused: “The implication for your lives going forward is you’ll carry with you a previous conviction for the offence of robbery on your criminal records.

“This is a very serious offence and for an adult offender or one with previous convictions a lengthy custodial sentence would undoubtedly be imposed and in this case the threshold for imposing a custodial sentence has been passed.”

The sheriff said the question was whether that was the correct punishment or if alternatives to detention were available.

He went on: “Most importantly I have to take into account your young ages at the time and the fact that the time of offences was just over three years ago – and I’m told you have not been involved in any further offending since that time, so I propose to impose on each of you a restriction of liberty order for a period of nine months.

“You’ll require to wear an electronic monitoring device and any tampering with the device or any breach of the curfew will be reported to the court.”

He warned that the most likely outcome of a failure by either accused to keep to the strict conditions would result in a custodial sentence.