She thought the one pretending to be the delivery driver was acting under duress when she saw firearm and pulled him into her home
A man pretended to be a pizza delivery driver when a gang of burglars – one of them armed with an imitation firearm – targeted a Hull woman’s family home late at night. Two of the raiders were wearing balaclavas and they were standing behind the decoy delivery man, waiting to pounce.
The woman wrongly thought that he was being forced to knock on her door and, in a misguided attempt to help him, she pulled him inside and slammed the door shut. The two disguised burglars started kicking the door to try to break in, a court heard. Mohammed Wahid, 20, of Sherburn Street, off Holderness Road, east Hull, admitted aggravated burglary on October 26 last year. He also admitted possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply and possessing cannabis on December 11 last year
Oliver Shipley, prosecuting, told Grimsby Crown Court that the woman was at home with her children and she was sleeping on her sofa when there was a knock at the door. She was confronted with a man carrying a pizza box.
She called to her four children to ask who had ordered a pizza but she instantly noticed that one of the two men behind the fake delivery man had a firearm. Within a split second, she hauled the delivery man into her home and slammed the front door shut, thinking that he was acting under duress from the two men in balaclavas.
The terrifying ordeal escalated when the two men outside began kicking at the door to break it down. The woman rang 999. The fake delivery driver asked her not to call the police and offered to identify the men outside.
Police officers arrived. “She was shaken and terrified by the incident,” said Mr Shipley. “She did not know why it had happened.” CCTV from the home was examined and it captured the men arriving and then leaving the area.
The woman was now frightened to leave her own home. “She has no idea why she was targeted, which makes it difficult for her to come to terms with it,” said Mr Shipley.
“She said that she had not had a good night’s sleep since then.” The ordeal had also impacted on her children. When Wahid was arrested, he told police that two men in a 4×4 had stopped him in the street, asked if he would do a job for them and offered to pay him £20.
In separate offences, on December 11 last year, plain clothes police officers spotted Wahid in Buckingham Street, east Hull, involved in suspicious activity. He was arrested and his property was searched. Police found a quantity of Class A drugs and cannabis.
Wahid was bailed and released. On January 10, police officers in an unmarked car in Belmont Street, east Hull, spotted Wahid. When he was approached, he ran off but he was later caught in possession of drugs. Again, he was bailed and, on February 12, officers on Holderness Road spotted Wahid near an amusement arcade. He was arrested again and searched and a mobile phone was seized.
It contained 64,000 messages relating to drug supply. As police officers inspected the phone, a message showed on the screen saying: “You got any bits?”
Rachel Scott, mitigating, said that Wahid had not taken anything from the woman’s home and he was vulnerable to exploitation. His role was only to knock at the door. Wahid had no previous convictions.
He was someone who was easily pressured and he had been involved in the supply of drugs to pay off debt for his addiction to cannabis. He started using cannabis aged 14 and cocaine from when he was 18 years old.
Judge Gurdial Singh said that the woman was scared and wanted to move from her home. “That is an awful state of affairs,” he said. Wahid had involved himself in drug supply, but there was no evidence that he had advertised drugs on the phone which was seized.
It had been a catalogue of offences from December through to February this year. Wahid was sent to a young offenders’ Institution for four years.