Two masked robbers armed with a hammer and an axe ambushed a woman and tried to steal her phone, a court has heard. Shane Palethorpe and Thomas Harries were laying in wait for their victim as she emerged from a flat, and attacked her before chasing her dad.
However, during the incident they were seen to be unsteady on their feet and they left a trail of clues behind them, prompting the barrister of one of the defendants to say the offence "could not have been carried out by a more incompetent pair of robbers". Between them Palethorpe and Harris have almost 140 previous offences on their records including numerous robberies, burglaries, and inflicting grievous bodily harm. Palethorpe carried out his first robbery when he was aged just 10.
Ian Wright, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that on the evening of April 4 this year a woman was at her sister's flat in Clos Dewi Medi in the Morfa area of Llanelli when she received two phone calls from a man asking where she was. The calls were from a phone linked to Palethorpe, though he was trying to disguise his voice by putting on a "fake accent". The woman refused to answer the caller's questions and hung up.
