A PAIR of drugged-up youths who carried out a knife-point robbery on a man in his own home have both been jailed for two years and nine months.

Luke Jackel and Jake Bell were trying to buy more cannabis when they held up their victim in his flat in Wroughton.

After picking up a knife inside the flat, 20-year-old Bell threatened to ‘slice up’ a barking dog in the room as they robbed the man.

Claire Marlow, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court Bell and Jackel, 21, had gone to the flat in Devizes Road, Wroughton, on the evening of Saturday, September 17.

She said they arrived between 7pm and 7.30pm and the door was opened to them and they went in.

“Once inside, the occupants, including the victim, were in the living room and approached and told ‘hand over everything’,” she said.

“That was in relation to Mr Bell.

“He picked up a knife which appeared to be lying on a counter in the premises.

“He said they should get the dog, which was barking, away or he would slice it.”

She said he was generally threatening with the knife and took some cash, tobacco, the kitchen knife and possibly a small amount of cannabis.

The pair then left after about 10 minutes and the police were later told of the incident.

Jackel, of Tavistock Road, Park North, and Bell, of The Circle, Pinehurst, admitted robbery.

Rob Ross, for Bell, said his client had few previous convictions and probably hadn’t realised how serious the matter was when he was committing the offence.

He said since the incident he had become a father and had managed to stay out of trouble.

Mr Ross urged the court not to impose a jail term and said his client had never been behind bars before.

Mike Pulsford, for Jackel, said his client was not the lead player in the robbery but accepted he had played his part.

Since the offence, which was committed when they were going to buy more drugs, he said he had stopped using cannabis.

Jailing them, Recorder Ian Lawrie branded them “a feckless pair who hadn’t done a day’s work”, or kept to any community orders they were put on for other offences.

He said: “This is on any view a serious offence.

“It was very serious because there were two of you, you were under the influence of cannabis at the time, you chose to use a knife, you chose to commit it in someone else’s home.

“I have to pass a sentence long enough to send out to the rest of the community its disapproval of this type of offending.”