A ‘violent’ robber who stole £1,000 from his care home has been jailed with an accomplice for 14 years.

Joshua Scales and James Hicks, both of no fixed address, demanded cash from the deputy manager of a Newham care home where Scales was meant to be staying in May.

When they tried calling police 18-year-old Scales ripped the phone line out of the wall before grabbing a safe containing £1,012.

A month later Scales and Hicks stole a cream-coloured Vespa Piaggio from outside a house in Camden.

They headed to Barnet where they chased down and cornered a 25-year-old woman before punching her in the face.

She begged them not to take her things but the thugs grabbed her phone and bag. They left her with a bleed on the brain and fractured skull.

The pair then used her bank card to buy ice cream and soft drinks while their victim was in hospital fighting for her life.

The pair were caught when police found Hicks and Scales’s DNA on the Vespa after it was found abandoned following an attempted moped enabled mugging.

A police search at the home of an associate of Hicks’s uncovered stolen bank cards, knives, a window breaker, a samurai sword, jewellery, mobile phone sim cards, bike gloves, hooded jackets, and a black motorcycle helmet.

Det Insp Steve Brownlee said: “Scales and Hicks left a young woman fighting for her life after violently assaulting her, demonstrating the extreme lengths they were prepared to go to steal property.

“The tenacity of the police team led to these criminals being located and arrested within 72 hours of the offence being committed.

“We will stop at nothing to bring to justice criminals who rob people, and will use every legal tactic at our disposal, including tactical contact to do so.”

Scales pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years four months in prison, with an extended three year licence, for one count of robbery, possession of cannabis, three counts of fraud by false representation, handling a stolen Vespa Piaggio and the safe theft.

Hicks, 20, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years and six months for three counts of robbery, five counts of fraud by false representation and theft of the Vespa.

Both were sentenced at Harrow Crown Court last week.