Probation order for Derry man who robbed young Spanish visitors in city centre and threatened to 'slash their throats'

Two Spanish exchange students visiting Derry were robbed by a man who threatened to ‘slash their throats’, a court was told this week.

Seamus Doherty, 20, appeared before Derry Crown Court on Tuesday where he was sentenced in connection with the robbery on July 3 last year.

The court heard that at around midday on the day the offence took place, Doherty and another man approached a 14-year-old Spanish exchange student who was standing with some friends waiting on a taxi in Magazine Street.

Doherty asked the boy for money for cigarettes and he gave him £2 to ‘get rid of him’.

However, Doherty persisted in asking for more money another four times, approaching the boy and his friends aggressively.

He then held his hand in his pocket suggesting he had a knife and made threats to ‘cut’ and ‘slit’ the boys. They ran off and described feeling ‘terrified’ by the encounter.

The Spanish boys contacted police and told them what had happened.

However, Doherty handed himself in to police three days later and said he ‘needed to go to Hydebank’.

Doherty told police he had threatened the boys and told them demanded money or he would ‘slit their throats’. He said he had pretended he had a knife in his pocket but that he didn’t actually have a knife.

Doherty, who has 34 previous convictions, said he was ‘on drugs at the time’.

Stephen Mooney, defence counsel, said that Doherty approached the Spanish schoolboys in a ‘pretty despicable and cowardly manner’ and demanded money and made threats.

However, he said that Doherty had ‘effectively gotten away with this’ had he not handed himself in to police and admitted his wrongdoing.

Doherty served around five months in custody on remand, which is equivalent to a 10-month sentence.

Mr Mooney said that Doherty had adhered to his bail conditions and curfew and even told police when he had asked someone for a cigarette and took a few puffs of what he then realised to be a cannabis joint.

He described Doherty as ‘an inveterate criminal for a long period of time’ whom he now believed to be ‘pretty remarkable in his attempts to turn things round’.

Crown Court Judge Philip Babington this case had a ‘strange history’ and that Doherty had handed himself in to police after threatening to ‘slit or cut’ Spanish exchange students while demanding money.

Judge Babington said that Doherty had a ‘very poor record considering your age’ and that aged just 20 he already had 34 convictions, half of which are for road traffic matters but also common assault and theft.

Addressing Doherty directly, Judge Babington then said that he decided that ‘an exceptional course could be taken’ after taking everything into consideration and that he was ‘prepared to take a chance and accept that you may well have turned a corner’.

Although he added: “You have let your whole city down by this behaviour, this city depends on visitors and this is not a great way of going about attracting them.”

Doherty was given an 18-month probation order to engage in a number of recommended rehabilitation programmes including drug and alcohol counselling.