A DRUG addict handed himself in to police, shortly after an unsuccessful robbery bid at a village newsagents’ store, a court heard.

Michael Leslie Knowles returned home after fleeing the Windsor Store, in Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, empty-handed, and asked his father to take him to a police station.

Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, told Durham Crown Court: “The defendant effectively handed himself into his local police station with his father.

“He made the comment: ‘I’m handing myself in for a robbery that I did at Great Lumley this morning.”

Mr Dryden said Knowles entered the store at 9.25am on Sunday May 3 wearing a baseball cap and home-made mask, holding a carrier bag which appeared to contain a firearm.

He approached the store owner at the counter, pointing the bag in his direction, and told him: “Open the till, or I’ll shoot you.”

Mr Dryden said the confrontation continued for a short time at the counter, until the owner’s wife and daughter approached, one of them throwing a bottle of vodka in Knowles’ direction.

They managed to usher him out of the shop, without any money being handed to Knowles.

When he subsequently attended the police station, Knowles told officers that the implement inside the carrier bag was, in reality, the metal funnel from a petrol can, which he had brought with him, in the boot of his father’s car.

The court was told the root of his offending was the drug problem Knowles suffered from being a teenager, having run up large debts from taking cocaine, and more recently taking between £70 and £80-worth of heroin a day.

He told police he had been mixing vodka and valium at a friend’s house into the early hours and, on leaving, felt the urge for heroin, but needed cash.

Knowles told police he burned eye holes into a woollen hat and drove to the store.

The 32-year-old, of Abbotside Close, Ouston, near Chester-le-Street, admitted attempted robbery.

Stephen Constantine, for Knowles, said the, “most significant mitigation” he could offer was the defendant’s almost immediate confession and subsequent ‘guilty’ plea.

“He told police he was sorry for what he did, but he said it was a good thing as he would go to prison and receive treatment to try to overcome his addiction.

“But, he also said he wanted to apologise to the victims at the store.

“He’s 32 and has no history of violence, or anything like this.

“It was committed out of desperation.”

Imposing a prison sentence of three years and four months, Judge Neil Clark told Knowles it was clearly a pre-planned raid, but it was to his benefit that he showed immediate remorse.

Judge Clark also praised the “exceptional bravery” of the family which run the store for withstanding Knowles’ demands.