Pair jailed after terrifying late night St Andrews student street robbery

Terrified students were punched and robbed of a mobile phone and a handbag in St Andrews.

The pair were attacked in the early hours of the morning after returning home from a function in Dundee.

Carlisle men Liam Bateman and Liam Gearing were jailed after they admitted targeting the friends.

Robbery

At around 3am, the two robbery victims arrived at North Haugh by bus and began walking towards Market Street.

An agreed written narration for the court stated: “During the walk, they observed two males walking behind them and shouting towards them, which the witnesses ignored.

“The males continued to follow and shouted towards the female asking if they could go home with her.

“The male turned around and questioned (Bateman and Gearing) as to why they were following them at which point, Bateman punched him to the face and caused his glasses to fall off.”

Bateman and Gearing punched the woman three times on the face before seizing hold of her handbag and mobile phone and fleeing the scene.

Police caught Bateman after a short chase on foot.

He said in response to being arrested: “How the f*** am I going to get back to Carlisle?”

Bateman, 21, spotted Gearing and shouted “run Liam” but he was also arrested.

20-year-old Gearing said: “We will get five years for this” and “police are rats”.

Threats

The court was told how hours before the robbery, Bateman made himself comfortable in a stranger’s flat on Market Street at about 11pm.

He was told by the occupier to get out after being told a person he was looking for was not there.

Bateman and another man ignored the request and poured themselves a drink while charging their phones.

A woman returned home to the same flat and Bateman threatened to “batter” her, before they left and police were contacted.

Further crimes

Both men, originally of Carlisle, admitted repeatedly punching the woman on the head and robbing her of a handbag and mobile phone on March 2 2022.

Bateman pled guilty to behaving abusively in the flat after entering uninvited and punching the man on the head and robbing him of a mobile phone.

Six months after the Fife offences, HMP Durham prisoner Bateman was sentenced to 32 months in custody after robbing a woman at knifepoint of an e-scooter in his hometown.

In March this year, Gearing, a prisoner at HMPYOI Polmont, was hit with a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence for attempting to petrol bomb a house in Cumbria.

The pair were brought back to Dundee Sheriff Court to be sentenced this week following the preparation of social work reports.

Sheriff Paul Brown sentenced each to 37 months in prison.

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