A bully who ‘psychologically dominated’ and robbed

A bully who ‘psychologically dominated’ and robbed six teenagers
on a tube train has been detained for two years.

Snaresbrook Crown Court was told on Friday that ‘menace’
Stephen Forsyth, 20, had only just been released from a sentence
imposed in 1990 for similar muggings on the London Underground.

Jobless Forsyth, of Poplar High Street, Poplar, admitted six
charges of robbery.

Passing sentence Recorder Jan Paulusz told him that
it was his duty to protect people who travelled on public transport.

‘I have to make it plain to you that courts treat very seriously
indeed robberies on the London Underground.

‘People are very frightened to go on it at certain times.

‘
The recorder continued: ‘You exercised some kind of psychological
domination by bullying these young people and after robbing them
jeering at them.

‘
Forsyth received two years detention in a Young Offenders’
Institution concurrent on each charge he admitted.

The court had heard how on the evening of October 4 last year a
young group of students aged between 16 and 17 – Giles Offen,
Alexander Kennard, Imtiaz Ali, Russell Schaller, Ahmed Hasani, and
Nicholas Haley – boarded a Central Line train at their local station
at Buckhurst Hill bound for London.

Forsyth got on at South Woodford and sat next to one of the
youngsters who he immediately began to intimidate, said Miss Polly-
Anne Comfort, prosecuting.

Then at random he approached all six teenagers and forced them to
empty their pockets of cash totalling about pnds stlg 45 in all.

The prosecution said that there was no evidence to suggest
Forsyth used a weapon although one of the victims thought that he had
a knife.

The train got to Leytonstone and the defendant shouted as he
got off: – ‘You nancy boys’.

In November five of the six lads picked out Forsyth at an
identifcation parade.

During police interview he had initially denied being responsible
for robbing them.

ENDS