A DRUGGED-UP thug has been jailed for ten years for trying to hold up a bank and then robbing a shop worker at knifepoint minutes later.<br />Hapless heroin addict Paul Easby, aged 37, put on a balaclava in the store – but only after he had walked unmasked past several CCTV cameras.<br />Easby, who has spent most of his life behind bars for a string of violent offences, even asked his taxi to wait outside the Londis shop while he carried out the raid.<br />Police quickly recognised him from the footage and he was arrested the next day, when he admitted he had been so intoxicated he could not recall what he had done.<br />Now a judge at Plymouth Crown Court has jailed him for a decade for what he called the “terrifying raids”.<br />Judge Simon Carr said: “The bank cashier took four months before she could return to work and even when she did she was having nightmares.”<br />He praised the “considerable bravery” shown by the woman who ignored Easby’s threat that he had a gun to press a panic alarm at the Barclays Branch in Armada Way.<br />Easby, a heroin addict since his early 20s, has committed a string of violent and sometimes bizarre offences including a cat burglary at a jewellery shop and escaping from security guards while going to the toilet.
