JURORS took less than two hours to find a man guilty of robbing another at knifepoint.

Christopher Bonner, 51, did not appear to flinch in the dock at Swindon Crown Court as the forewoman of the jury delivered the unanimous guilty verdict.

He will be sentenced on a date to be fixed in the new year alongside his co-defendant in the robbery 47-year-old Kerrie Mclane.

Granting Bonner, of Queens Drive, bail, Judge Jason Taylor QC said: “You’ve been convicted by the jury of what you must understand is a very serious offence. I will sentence you in due course along with Ms Mclane.”

During the short three-day trial, jurors heard that the victim had gone to a house in Rosebery Street on March 13, 2019, to meet Mclane for sex.

He’d met her earlier that day and had swapped numbers, later arranging to meet at the Broadgreen terraced home. The house was occupied by a vulnerable man and at the time subject to a partial court closure order, imposed over concerns that the occupant was being taken advantage of by drug dealers.

CCTV from a neighbouring house captured Mclane waiting outside the property. Bonner, riding an orange mountain bike and wearing a khaki-green jacket, could be seen arriving at the house and being ushered in by the woman.

Swindon Advertiser:

Christopher Bonner arrives on a pushbike, while Kerrie Mclane looks down the street Picture: CPS WESSEX

A few minutes later, the victim went into the house having earlier parked up and gone around the corner to withdraw the £50 cash with which he planned to pay for sex.

Giving evidence to jurors, the man said the entrance hallway was pitch-black. He followed Mclane upstairs. He had a sense that something wasn’t right and Mclane, perhaps sensing he was about to leave, shouted a warning. A tall black man, wearing a khaki jacket and with a black scarf over the bottom of his face appeared from behind a door and came for the victim with a knife.

The robber pinned him against a wall with one hand and held the serrated knife in the other hand. He demanded: “Where’s the money?” The victim was punched to the head while his wallet and phone were stolen. He was told to get out and he left the house.

The incident was reported to police at the time, although he later withdrew his support for the prosecution. He said: “I wanted to put it behind me.” He changed his mind a few weeks later.

CCTV shown at Bonner's trial shows him arriving at the house on a push bike Video: CPS WESSEX

Bonner was arrested and, in interview, denied any involvement in the robbery. He claimed not to have been to the Rosebery Street address or have any association with Mclane.

Put in the witness stand, the defendant acknowledged that was a lie. A heroin and crack addict at the time, he said he had gone to the house in Rosebery Street to score drugs. There had been three dealers in the house, all of whom were black. He had gone into a bathroom to take drugs and had then left.

During the trial, it emerged that police had failed to conduct an identity parade despite both Bonner and the victim saying they would be happy to take part. When the defendant was arrested the video equipment that recorded the videos used in the ID parades was broken. DNA samples had not been taken from a knife at the scene. A man named by Bonner as an alibi witness was not spoken to – neither were other women, said to have been in the house at the time, quizzed by officers. Only CCTV from the immediate period surrounding the robbery was examined by police.

Don Tait, for Bonner, described the Crown’s case as lamentable - labelling it a catalogue of failures.

“You are invited to be sure on this evidence and, although you may be suspicious, the defendant doesn’t have to prove his innocence – the prosecution has to prove his guilty so you are sure,” he told jurors.

“If this case had been investigated properly you might have been able to be sure, but as it hasn’t been these lamentable failures - this catalogue of failure - lead you to say to yourself whatever I might suspect I just cannot be sure.”

In her closing speech, prosecutor Emily Heggadon pointed to the fact the defendant had lied in his interview. “The prosecution say he lied in that interview because he had something to hide and it wasn’t because he was buying drugs.”