A JURY has heard a robber “laughed” after robbing a school girl of her mobile phone in central Carlisle.
The city’s crown court has been told how the 13-year-old girl took out her iPhone in Lowther Street at around 3-20pm on July 4, 2018, while stood with two friends.
As she did so, a man grabbed and twisted her hand, forcing her to release the handset. As the robber ran off, she bravely chased him up the street.
Giving evidence today (WED), one of the girl’s friends provided an eyewitness account of an incident during which, she said: “We all kind of just froze.”
“There was a man who came towards us and grabbed her phone out of her hand,” the friend told jurors. “He was trying to get into our triangle. He must have saw her phone out. He just grabbed it.”
The friend added: “He just shoved her off and kind of like started laughing. He started laughing before he started running. Just like it wasn’t that serious to him.”
She recalled the teen giving chase along Lowther Street, adding: “She was very shocked.”
The friend gave police a description of the culprit and, during a video line-up procedure, made a positive identification of 30-year-old Carlisle man Aaron Raymond Duncan as the man responsible.
Duncan is on trial and denies an allegation of robbery. He told police he was not the person who snatched the phone.
During cross-examination, the girl’s friend was asked by Duncan’s barrister, Andrew Ford: “Do you think it’s possible you might have made a mistake with the face you picked?”
The girl replied: “No.”
The trial continues.