TWO teenagers who robbed a Venezuelan lawyer on holiday in Oxford of a £20,000 watch have been jailed.

Kelvin Ferreira, right, and Mustafa Mohammed, below, both 18, attacked Juan Domingo Cordero Osorio after following him from Thirst nightclub, Park End Street, in the early hours of September 6 last year.

Oxford Mail:

They were sentenced to 40 and 45 months in prison respectively for the attack on the Venezuelan lawyer, in which he was pinned by the arms while his watch was taken.

Judge Peter Ross, at Oxford Crown Court on Thursday, told them: “You were waiting, you were waiting in the shadows of the doorway. I have absolutely no doubt that by that stage, no doubt at some time in the club, you had spotted that he was wearing an unusual and potentially valuable watch.

“I suspect that you had not appreciated that it would be worth quite as much as it was and I doubt when you sold it you got anywhere near the real value.”

He said CCTV appeared to show Mohammed, of East Oxford’s Cricket Road, striking his victim, who then had his arms grabbed from behind after he fell over. Ferreira, of Droop Street, West London, stood over the lawyer and took his watch.

Photographs of the red-strapped watch and online searches for its value were found on Ferreira’s phone after he was arrested when he returned to the club the next day, the court heard.

Judge Ross said minor injuries to the victim’s face, neck, hand and elbow were “not the most serious injuries” from such attacks and said the pair faced a reduced sentence if they revealed what happened to the watch.

He acknowledged Mohammed had found a job in car valeting and wanted to gain qualifications, while Ferreira had volunteered at a youth club and planned to attend an engineering course.

Judge Ross said Ferreira’s early guilty plea to robbery had cut his sentence, but Mohammed only pleaded guilty at a later hearing.

However, he said the planned nature of the attack, a joint effort against one “vulnerable” victim to take a valuable item, counted against them.

Giles Bedloe, for Ferreira, said his client was “surprised” by the watch’s value and added: “He does live in a part of London where gangs operate and there are bad influences for young men in similar circumstances to him.”


 

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