Robber Jailed After Using Banana As Weapon
Wed Mar 16,11:51 AM ET Strange News - AP
LONDON - Robert Downey had the mask and the attitude to be a successful robber. But he ruined the effect when he tried to stage a hold-up at his local bookmaker's shop — using a banana.
Noting the suspicious bend in the so-called "weapon," the clerk calmly called the police and on Wednesday, Downey was jailed for nearly seven years for attempted robbery.
Prosecutors at the trial at Southwark Crown Court in London said Downey, a drug addict, hatched his scheme to buy more crack.
Donning a mask, he headed for the bookmaker's shop, pausing only to get a banana from the greengrocer on the way.
In the bookmaker's, he pointed the fruit wrapped in a plastic bag, screaming, "I want the money or I will (expletive) shoot you."
This did not produce the desired effect: assistant Peter Humphrey calmly turned to a colleague and said: "He said he has a gun, but it might be a banana."
Downey then produced a pair of scissors, "but seeing no money was going to be handed over he ran out of the shop," said prosecutor Patrick Cahill.
When police arrived they found the 24-year-old nearby trying to pull off his over-tight balaclava. A police dog found the badly bruised banana still in its bag nearby.
Downey, of Chatham, south of London, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted robbery at William Claridges Ltd. in Tower Hamlets, east London, in November. He also admitted possessing an imitation firearm.
"You did say, although it may seem comic now but not quite so comic at the time, that in the bag was a firearm," Justice Paul Dodgson told Downey.
"As it's been pointed out by your counsel that was an attempt that met with no success. Indeed, your victims having guessed what it was, it was never going to succeed."
Downey's lawyer, Rajiv Menon, called the robbery attempt "farcical and incompetent."
"We have to face facts. It was a banana, not even a plastic gun, or something that even looked
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