Rampaging father jailed three years after threatening to blow up pub

Rampaging father who threatened to blow up his local pub and shoot another customer before trying to rob a kebab shop with imitation gun during lager and cocaine binge is jailed for three years

• Jack Higson, 28, pulled a toy gun on pub regulars in Bury, Greater Manchester 
• He carried on his rampage at his local takeaway, where staff knew his name
• Higson has now been jailed for three years and two months over the affray 

A father who threatened to blow up a pub before trying to rob a kebab shop during a cocaine and lager binge has been jailed. 

Jack Higson, 28, has been locked up for three years and two months following the hell-raising rampage in Bury, Greater Manchester on August 28 last year.

Higson became embroiled in a slanging match over who was the strongest with another drinker at the New Grove pub in the Whitefield area of the town.

After comparing their muscles, Higson threw a failed punch at the other man, but was so drunk he missed his target. 

Undeterred, he went to the boot of his car and picked up a toy pistol. He then came storming back into the pub threatening to shoot before picking up a gas cylinder from behind the bar and saying he would make it explode.

Father-of-one Jack Higson, 28, has been jailed for three years and two months following the hell-raising rampage in Bury, Greater Manchester, on August 28 last year

Things went from bad to worse after Higson became embroiled in a ‘who’s the strongest’ slanging match with another drinker at the New Grove pub in the Whitefield area of the town

Staff managed to throw Higson out but he then staggered to the nearby Bits ‘n’ Pizza eatery where he was about to order a large doner before pulling out the toy gun from his waistband.

During the bungled raid, he drunkenly mistook a fellow customer for the takeaway boss, pointed the imitation pistol at his nose and told him: ‘Give me the till. Give me the f*****g money.’ 

He eventually fled empty handed after smashing a monitor from the till on the floor.

Higson was arrested later that day after staff at the takeaway called police and told them his name. It emerged he had got drunk with his friends after his girlfriend refused to accompany him home following a day out.

At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Higson was sent to prison after he pleaded guilty to affray, possession of an imitation firearm and attempted robbery.

Sentencing Higson, Judge Bernadette Baxter told him: ‘You refused to be placated after the argument and threatened to shoot someone inside your local pub. 

‘One would have expected you to have blown off steam and gone home after this but sadly things escalated.

‘You have expressed no empathy at all towards the victim in the takeaway, thinking that they would just shrug it off and get on with it. 

Higson staggered to his regular Bits ‘n’ Pizza eatery, where he was known to staff, before pulling out the toy gun from his waistband and staging a bungled robbery

‘Instead, the victim acted as normal people would have acted and was shocked at your actions.’

Lisa Boocock, prosecuting, described how Higson had attended the pub in the evening with some friends. 

She said: ‘It is fair to say that by the time of the incident, he had consumed a large amount of alcohol and had also admitted to consuming a quantity of cocaine.

‘He had got into an argument with another man in the pub regarding the defendant’s strength. This argument escalated and the defendant was visibly annoyed and began gesticulating wildly.

‘As a friend tried to calm him down, the defendant tried to punch the man he was arguing with but fortunately missed in his intoxicated state.’

Ms Boocock said that while Higson did not actually reveal the imitation firearm inside the pub, ‘he kept reaching for his waistband, where it was concealed’, while making threats to shoot.

She added: ‘Once outside in the pub garden, he picked up his pint glass in one hand and one of the garden chairs in the other. He threw the chair in a fit of rage and left the garden then made his way towards the Bits ‘N’ Pizza takeaway on Old Bury Road.

‘He was a regular visitor to this takeaway and the staff members recognised him.

Higson appeared at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court (pictured), where he was jailed for three years and two months after pleading guilty to affray, possession of an imitation firearm and attempted robbery

‘The defendant withdrew the imitation firearm from his waistband, held it up against the customer’s nose and shouted, “give me the f*****g money, give me the till.” 

‘The customer responded by saying he has not got a till and that he didn’t work there and realising this, the defendant went behind the counter and threatens the staff with a similar demand: ‘give me the money.’

‘After staff told him that they didn’t have keys to the till he pulled the monitor off from the top of the counter and threw it onto the floor before walking out of the shop. Members of staff called the police after he left.’

In a statement the customer said: ‘I thought that this gun was real and for several weeks after I suffered serious anxiety attacks as a result of this. I woke up every morning feeling anxious.’

In mitigation for Higson, defence counsel Adam White said: ‘This all started after the defendant got into an argument with his partner when she said she wasn’t coming back to the house with him. He then decided to go out drinking and taking cocaine with friends.

‘It’s clear that he was not thinking at all about what he was doing when he took the imitation firearm from the back of his car. This was not a premeditated action and was not a sophisticated one by any means. 

‘His partner and five-year-old daughter are rightly concerned about what will happen as a result of his custodial sentence.’

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