A robbery victim does not know when he will "feel safe again" after his iPhone was stolen and blanks from a fake gun were fired near him in a Sneinton street.
The man was in Colwick Road, Sneinton, just before Ladysmith Street, when a vehicle pulled up on March 23, 2020, Nottingham Crown Court was told.
Ausama Butt got out of the car and grabbed the man, who knew him by the nickname 'Chopper'.
He forced him into an alleyway in Ladysmith Street and demanded his phone or, "I will shank you". Shank is slang for knifing someone.
Judge Julie Warburton sentenced Butt on the basis he did not in fact have a knife but, she said, he had continued to hold the man's chest and neck.
He handed over his phone before Butt searched him, demanding he take off his shoes and socks as the robbery unfolded just before midnight.
Butt's unidentified associate had with him an imitation gun and it was discharged.
The victim heard a loud bang, followed by four or five bangs, which made his ears ring and the left side of his head ache.
"It felt like the left side of his head was bleeding," said the judge who jailed Butt for five-and-a-half years on Thursday, March 10.
"He realised he had not been shot, because as he put it, 'I was still standing up'. Three blank rounds left some discharge from the firearm. He made a complaint to police and Butt was arrested".
Police found the victim's iPhone in Butt's bathroom cabinet. Cell site evidence put that phone and Butt's phone at the scene of the robbery.
Butt had pleaded guilty to robbery - receiving five years and two months for that offence - and to possessing an imitation firearm - where he received five years and two months concurrently. He also received a four month consecutive offence for a separate affray 12 months earlier.
The firearm charge was admitted although Butt was not the gunman. The judge accepted, "it was within your contemplation it should be used in that way" and it was a, "joint enterprise incident" involving a gun only capable of firing blanks.
A statement from the victim indicated he had been significantly affected by the incident and his life, as he described, had "changed dramatically".
He also indicated that he was fearful of going shopping or to work. He was fearful people were still looking for him and he was in danger.
He said he did not know when he would feel safe again.
Twelve months before the attack, Butt, 26, of St Stephen's Road, Sneinton, had been in a group who targeted Pepe's Piri Piri in Sneinton Dale on its grand opening day in an unprovoked attack.
Some offenders had weapons. Butt leant weight to the incident but did not have a weapon.
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