Gretna man involved in robbing pizza delivery driver jailed for 34 months

A homeless Gretna man was helped by two partners-in-crime as he robbed a pizza delivery driver in Carlisle after a late night drink and drugs binge.

The city’s crown court heard yesterday how Billy Moorhead lured the 26-year-old victim to a fictional house number just after 2am on July 28 last year.

As the delivery man drove around in his search for the property 35-year-old Moorhead approached and asked for the £81 order of pizza, alcohol, cigarettes and cola.

When told he would have to pay, he turned violent and punched the man in the face leaving him with a cut above his right eye.

Moorhead then ordered two accomplices, Alexandru Pruna, 28, and 41-year-old Jonathan David Rogers, to snatch the delivery.

Prosecutor Brendan Burke said: “They did and ran off with everything. Curiously the defendant (Moorhead) then said to (the victim) ‘you don’t deserve this’ and then ran off himself.”

Moorhead was swiftly nabbed by police who learned the call placed with the city centre takeaway had come from his phone.

Mr Burke added: “Police attended an address at (Carlisle’s) Welsh Road where the three were enjoying the spoils.”

The trio blamed each other after being arrested and taken into custody.

Former fisherman Moorhead admitted robbery.

Defence barrister David Callan said: “The defendant thinks it was disgraceful. Somebody delivering pizza should not be subjected to this behaviour.”

His problems had been unemployment, cocaine and alcohol addiction, and no fixed address.

“He has lived in Gretna all his life,” said Mr Callan, who told how, until recently, Moorhead had worked as a sea fisherman for his grandfather’s trawler firm.

He added: “His life has gone off the rails. He wants to put all this behind him. He had got to get off the drugs — which he has; he has got to get off the drink.”

Recorder Paul Hodgkinson, who considered a psychiatric report, said Moorhead and his accomplices had consumed large amounts of cocaine and alcohol before carrying out the robbery.

He jailed Moorhead for 34 months.

“He was simply going about his work,” said Recorder Hodgkinson of the victim, “going about a difficult job helping the public, and you abused that help that he gave the public by robbing him and stealing these items.”

Pruna, of Warwick Square, Carlisle, had been jailed for 27 weeks at a previous hearing when Rogers, of the city’s Cumwhinton Road, received a community order comprising unpaid work and a curfew. Both men admitted theft.