A DRUG addict who robbed a terrified Brighton student of cash on his own doorstep has been jailed for 12 months.

Stephen Tully, 19, approached William Older as he returned one evening in September from visiting a video shop in London Road.

Tully and another man asked Mr Older for cigarettes and then followed him back to his home in Gerard Street where Tully demanded the student empty his pockets.

Mr Older feared Tully had a knife after he saw something metallic. Tully later said it was a key, Lewes Crown Court heard.

Mr Older handed over a £20 note and Tully fled - only to be arrested a short while later after Mr Older rang police.

Tully told officers he had committed the offence because of his dependency on drugs and at the time had taken crack and heroin.

Tully, of Staplefield Drive, Moulsecoomb, pleaded guilty to robbery at an earlier hearing on the basis he did not use a knife.

The court heard Tully, who has 37 previous convictions including four for robbery, had been addicted to drugs since he was 11.

But while on remand for the latest robbery he was said to have weaned himself off drugs.

Sentencing him to 12 months in a young offenders' institution, Judge Charles Kemp said: "We can only begin to imagine how frightened your victim was."

"You are building up a formidable criminal record for someone so young.

"If you don't learn soon the misery your conduct wreaks on people then your future is pretty bleak.

"But I accept you are beginning to show some signs of a positive life and have given up drugs."

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