LOSING LINES at the bookies led police to a robber and resulted in a 23-month jail sentence imposed at Dundee yesterday.

The court heard James Dougan (24), Linwood Place, carried out the robbery just 13 days after being released from an 18-month prison sentence imposed for housebreaking.

Dougan had previously admitted on indictment that on October 23 at Roseangle, he assaulted Zied Chaabane by seizing him by the neck and robbing him of a mobile phone, a wallet containing £250, bank cards and betting slips.

The 25-year-old victim was on his way to work at a local restaurant.

Witnesses saw the accused hurrying down Roseangle around 6pm and passing close to the victim, who was near the restaurant entrance.

The victim’s phone rang and he stood with his back to the pavement, looking down the stair to the restaurant as he answered it.

Depute fiscal Alan Kempton said, “At this point he felt someone put their arm round his neck and he was forced into the banister of the stair.

“He held his mobile phone away from his body but the accused grabbed it and ran off.”

In the aftermath the victim realised that as well as grabbing the phone, Dougan had also managed to take his wallet.

He remembered there were betting slips in the wallet and alerted bookmakers to the theft.

Two days later Dougan took the slips into the bookmakers to see if they were winning lines.

Staff realised they were the stolen slips and that led to Dougan being traced by police.

He told officers he had been to the bookmakers but denied he carried out the robbery.

He claimed he was checking the slips for a friend.

The fiscal said there had been no recovery of any of the stolen property and added that none of the betting slips produced a winner.

Sheriff Richard Davidson noted that Dougan had a lengthy record including two convictions for serious assault.

He ordered Dougan to serve eight months’ imprisonment from the unexpired portion of his earlier sentence because he had committed the robbery while on licence.

He sentenced Dougan to 15 months’ imprisonment for the robbery, to run from the end of the eight months and also ordered him to be subject to a supervised release order for 12 months after he completed his prison term.

The sheriff also ordered him to attend drug and alcohol counselling as part of the release order.