A STUDENT who had his phone stolen on a bus to Clifton was forced to make a recording to say he had sold the handset, a court heard.
Afterwards, he was allowed to go by the thieves, who stole his BlackBerry during a string of robberies on the same day in Nottingham.
The man was sitting on the back seat of the bus at 4pm when the gang – Jerome McCloud, a 15-year-old and another man – approached.
The teenager asked to look at his phone and said he was buying it, Nottingham Crown Court heard.
Out of fear, the man agreed and the teenager gave him £5.
"Outnumbered and scared, he put up little resistance to what was taking place," said Christopher Lowe, prosecuting.
When he got off the bus, the third offender, who had been with McCloud and the 15-year-old, used the stolen phone's recording device to get the victim to say he had sold the phone.
He called police when he got to his girlfriend's house.
All three thieves were arrested.
One was dealt with separately at court but McCloud and the teenager were sentenced together.
They were charged with the theft and two robberies each in Nottingham, all in December last year.
After stealing the BlackBerry on the bus, McCloud robbed two men of their mobile phones and cigarettes as they walked home from a pub at 10.30pm.
He cycled up to the men and asked them what they had got on them.
Feeling fearful and intimidated, they handed over their belongings.
Earlier that day, the 15-year-old, who is now 16, robbed two 14-year-olds of their BlackBerry phones at 1pm.
The victims were walking over a footbridge to the Victoria Centre, Nottingham, when the teenager, who was in the company of 18-year-old McCloud, followed them.
The teenager, who cannot be identified, made small talk, asking them where they were from, before he asked if they had anything on them.
"If you shout...you won't see tomorrow," he told them as he asked for their mobile phones.
He put his hands in his pockets to give the impression he had a weapon and patted one of the down.
He did allow them to remove their Sim cards from their phones.
Judge Gregory Dickinson QC gave the teenager an 18-month supervision order, with a six-month curfew and specified activity requirement for 91 days.
McCloud, whose address cannot be published, was sent to a young offenders' institution for 15 months.
He has convictions for robbery of a mobile phone and assault with intent to rob.
Adrian Langdale, for him, said the robberies were unplanned and opportunistic.
His client had taken the battery out of the man's phone and replaced it with his own.
"So, in effect, he was getting a fully-charged battery for his phone," he said.
