A COUPLE camping in a park were warned they would be "sliced up" during a terrifying gang robbery.

The man and his girlfriend had two mobile phones and other belongings stolen in the confrontation with Lee Colman, Ryan Harrison and Christopher Crossling.

The three thugs were tonight (Friday, February 12) behind bars for the early evening attack in Albert Park, Middlesbrough, on July 30 last year.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the man was punched in the face by Colman while Harrison took other property, and Crossling went back for their own bag - which they left at the scene - to avoid detection.

Colman and Crossling met at a hostel after being released from prison - the former for serious violence and the latter for sex offences.

Colman, 25, was locked up for five years for wounding with intent in 2011, while the court heard he had never spent more than three months out of prison since the age of 15.

Crossling, 22, originally from Framwellgate Moor, Durham City, was jailed for three years in 2014 for getting schoolgirls to send him naked photos of themselves and then trying to blackmail them,

Harrison, also 22, had served a 43-month sentence in a young offenders’ institution for robbery and having a blade, prosecutor Paul Newcombe told the court.

All three men admitted robbery and Judge Michael Taylor jailed Colman for three years, Harrison for two years and three months, and Crossling for 21 months.

He told them: “It’s fortunate that the victims did not sustain any physical harm although they were both very disturbed by what went on.

“There was a threat of violence saying they would be sliced up although no weapon was used or brandished.”

The judge heard how all three robbers had troubled childhoods, and two of them had spent many years in care.

Colman, of The Crescent, Middlesbrough, went into care aged 11 and had been in five different care home by the age of 15, his lawyer Rachel Dyson said.

"He has effectively been in the prison since the age of 15," said Miss Dyson. "He had been out for about three months before this offence, and that's the longest period of time he has managed to survive in the outside world."

Robert Mochrie, for Harrison, of Portman Street, Middlesbrough, said he, too, had been in care, struggled to come to terms with his sexuality and was introduced to heroin at an early age.

George Hazel-Owram, for Crossling, said: “His father left the family home when he was a young age and he was left caring for his disabled mother from the age of eight."