A MASKED robber who menaced shop staff with a baseball bat has been jailed for three years.

Drug addict Ben Beck, dressed all in black with gloves and a balaclava, stole scratch cards from the Best-in store in Palmerston Road, Boscombe, on Monday, December 1, Bournemouth Crown Court heard.

Two days later on December 3, the 26-year-old made off with £900 in cash from Ladbrokes in Portman Terrace, Southbourne, having jumped over the counter and threatened the manager with the bat held over his head.

Jailing Beck, Recorder Robert Pawson said the raids had “terrified” shop staff and passers-by.

“Although your previous offences are small in number, you were recently in 2011 convicted of possession of an offensive weapon in a public place,” he said.

“These were two robberies, one in darkness, both had elements of planning and some violence, you were intoxicated on drugs, which in my judgement increases the risk.”

Prosecutor Carolyn Branford-Wood said Beck, of Walpole Road in Boscombe, had threatened 28-year-old Best-in store owner Sukhi Kaur by tapping the wooden bat on his palm, before demanding money.

When she told him she couldn’t get into the till, he smashed the National Lottery machine and scratch card holder onto the floor with the baseball bat, making off with numerous cards.

Mother-of-two Mrs Kaur called lottery organisers Camelot who quickly cancelled the cards.

At Ladbrokes, the court heard, Beck climbed onto and over the counter to threaten the manager. He smashed the glass door on exiting and fled in the direction of Fisherman’s Walk.

At interview, Beck claimed he had carried out the robberies on the instruction of two drug dealers to whom he owed £500, and they had given him heroin and crack cocaine to give him the ‘courage’ to commit the crime.

In mitigation, Nicholas Robinson said his client had struggled with drug addiction since he was a child, and had been dealing class A drugs since he was 12 years old.

“What is sad about these offences, as well as the harm to the victims, is that they punctuated what was good progress by him,” said Mr Robinson, adding that Beck had “got clean” at Boscombe’s Providence Project rehab centre and had been helping others there until a relapse in August last year.

He said Beck showed “clear remorse and unqualified contrition” for his actions.

Beck pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery.