The thief threatens to use the angle grinder with an innocent woman

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A thief threatened a woman with an angle grinder when she tried to stop him from stealing a bike.

Vincent O’Connor used the electric D-lock cutter to secure a £1,000 bike outside a city center gym.

Mobile phone footage showed sparks flying as the 34-year-old ignored Sophie Smith’s pleas to stop.

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After watching the shocking clip played in court, Judge David Swinnerton said, “It’s as rude as it gets, isn’t it?”

O’Connor, of Longridge Walk, Kirkdale, hit outside the Virgin Active Lounge in London, around 6pm, on May 6 this year.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Ms Smith spotted O’Connor and another unidentified man standing on top of a bicycle rack.

“Sophie Smith saw sparks flying from an angle grinder and she saw this defendant use the angle grinder to cut off the bike lock,” said Attorney General Christopher Taylor.

I called the police and tried to intervene, while another employee got out and started recording the incident.

After the crooks cut the lock, Mrs. Smith grabbed the bike and O’Connor asked his partner to hand him the angle grinder again.

Mr Taylor said O’Connor then used it “in such a menacing way towards her, the crown would say it made her back off”.

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“If I had not retreated, the angle lightning bolt would have hit me, causing serious damage to my arm,” the victim said.

The court heard that Mrs. Smith was frightened and left the bike that O’Connor was riding. It has not been recovered.

O’Connor was arrested in Merseyside on June 10 and made a full confession when questioned by police.

He told officers that he stole a carbon fiber bike, which was “worth a lot of money,” to fund his drug addiction.

O’Connor said that when Mrs. Smith tried to grab the bike, it made him “pissed off” and he used the angle grinder to threaten and intimidate her, but he wouldn’t cut it.

He explained that he needed cash from selling the £1,000 bike because he had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.

“I’m really sorry I threatened the woman the way I did, basically I’d do anything,” O’Connor said.

He also went to trial for burglary at the Pause Café, in Tower Hamlets in London, on October 4, 2019.

O’Connor was captured on CCTV footage on a red Santander bike approaching the café before 5 a.m. and smashing a glass door.

He came in and stole £60 in cash and a vacuum cleaner, with the total loss to the café owner including damage said to be £800.

O’Connor, who has admitted to the theft and burglary, also requested another burglary involving a bike taken from a communal driveway on a London property, for consideration.

He has 93 prior offenses on his criminal record, including 27 thefts, 6 non-residential burglaries, home burglaries, assaults and possession of both white items and a fake firearm.

Defender Robert Dudley said: “He’s a drug addict. He’s been living in Liverpool, got into big debts, and needed to escape after his mother’s house was firebombed, he lost two friends, and he himself was shot in both legs in 2007. .

“He went to London about nine years ago and went straight back to drugs and the buyouts were his way of financing it.”

Dudley said O’Connor only set out to commit the theft, not the theft.

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“He credits his arrest with saving his life,” the lawyer said. “He wants a purge. He hopes to be able to do it in custody.”

He said O’Connor wanted a “clean slate” when he left prison, became a welder, and went back to live with his mother.

“He hopes while in custody that he can work towards making this happen and get some positive benefits out of it,” Mr Dudley said.

Judge Swinnerton told O’Connor he was a “repeated and habitual offender,” which was “undoubtedly” the result of drug addiction.

The judge said he hoped the fraudster would quit drugs, or else he would waste his life.

“You will also cause a great deal of suffering and misery to others if you continue to abuse in this way,” he said.

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Judge Swinnerton said: “I publicly commend Sophie Smith for the spirit of the audience shown in the video I just watched.

“Instead of just ignoring what was going on on the street, I bravely tried to do something about it.”

Judge Swinnerton said the bike was worth around £1,000, and O’Connor used an angle grinder to intimidate Ms Smith so he could take it.

He agreed that O’Connor did not intend to cut the victim and that there was no evidence that she had been physically or psychologically harmed, but said she would have been left frightened and shocked.

O’Connor showed no emotion as he was imprisoned for three years and nine months.

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