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24. On 6 December 1966 the applicant, then aged 17, pleaded guilty at Hampshire Assizes to armed robbery, assaulting a police officer and being in the unlawful possession of a firearm. In respect of the first offence, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. For the second and third offences he received 2 and 3 years' imprisonment respectively, all sentences to run concurrently.
25. The applicant had committed the robbery on 18 November 1966 when he entered a pet shop in Gosport, Hampshire, with a starting pistol loaded with blank cartridges, pointed it at the owner and told her to hand over the till. He stole a sum of 35 pence which was later found on the shop floor.
26. Later that same day, he telephoned Gosport police station to say that he would give himself up. He was apprehended in the High Street by two police officers. He took the starting pistol from his pocket and one of the officers, who thought it was real, grabbed his wrist and it went off. In the ensuing struggle, two more blanks were fired, one of which caused a powder burn to the wrist of one of the police officers. It emerged that the applicant had committed the robbery because he wanted to pay back £3 which he owed his mother, because she had told him that morning to find lodgings elsewhere.
27. At his trial, a prison medical officer testified that he could find no evidence of mental instability which would justify sending the applicant to a mental institution. However, a probation report, which had been prepared by a probation officer who had supervised the applicant for a period of two years, characterised him as being susceptible to fluctuation of mood, emotionally immature and of having a morbid interest in the literature of violence and a fascination for He also stated that he had taken to drinking heavily from time to time and that he had a high potential for aggression. No psychiatric report was available to the court, although the probation officer had indicated in his report that the court might be helped in sentencing if a psychiatric report were obtained.
28. In passing sentence, Mr Justice Thesiger said:
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satisfy me that
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the facts of the offence and the evidence of the character and disposition of the accused
he is a very dangerous young man.
I think an indeterminate sentence is the right sentence for somebody of this age, of this character and disposition, who is attracted to this form of conduct. That leaves the matter with the Secretary of State who can release him if and when those who have been watching him and examining him believe that with the passage of years he has become responsible. It may not take long. Or the change may not occur for a long time I do not know how it will work out.
so far as the first count of the indictment is concerned, I think the right
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