Pair jailed for raid on video rental shop

TWO robbers who carried out a raid on a city video rental store were today both jailed for a year.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard Thomas Airlie, 35, and Liam Kinghorn, 24, targeted the video rental shop at Main Street, Davidson's Mains, Edinburgh, while sales assistant Iain Dewar, 29, was working alone.

Fiscal depute Melanie Ward said the pair walked into the store at around 6.15pm, didn't talk to each other and appeared to be looking at the rentals. She said Mr Dewar carried on with his work and was then approached by the men with separate inquiries. As one was paying for a bag of sweets the other man swung round and threatened him. The court heard he said "give me the money in the till". The other man then punched Mr Dewar in the face and he was hustled into the back of the shop. Ms Ward said the door was locked to prevent other people coming in. She said the pair also took a video game and escaped. The court was told the victim had returned to work and had no issues there.

Airlie, of Edinburgh Prison, and Kinghorn, of Barlinnie Prison, admitted carrying out the offence on November 9 last year. They made off with 215, a Nintendo DS computer game and a mobile telephone.

The court heard Airlie, who has a previous conviction for assault to severe injury, was now stabilised on a drugs programme.

Defence agent Colm Dempsey for Kinghorn said that at the time he had been struggling with a drug problem which had spiralled out of control.

Sheriff Elizabeth Jarvie QC said it must have been a "frightening" incident and due to the circumstances only custody was appropriate.