'Honest' robber Callum Maxwell jailed over axe raid
A man who was thanked by police for his honesty after confessing to an armed raid while being questioned on another matter has been jailed for 45 months.
Callum Maxwell, 18, from Linwood, admitted using an axe to threaten staff and steal £80 from a Shell garage in the Renfrewshire town on 1 August 2012.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard his admission came 12 days later after being arrested on a different matter.
Judge Lord Bracadale ordered Maxwell to be supervised for a year after release.
The judge told him he would have been jailed for five years but for his early guilty plea.
Lord Bracadale told the teenager: "You pled guilty to a robbery at a filling station with your face masked and armed with an axe which you brandished at a woman working there.
"People who work in places like that are vulnerable to robbery and persons who commit robbery must expect a lengthy sentence of detention."
The judge pointed out that Maxwell had previous convictions for assault, carrying a weapon and dishonesty.
The court heard that when the teenager was arrested on another matter, he was taken to Paisley police station where he mentioned the Shell station robbery.
He told a constable: "You think he left in a car, he didn't."
The officer said he believed it may be someone local who must have been desperate for money to steal pounds £100.
'I was desperate'
Maxwell told him: "It was only £80."
After he arrived at the station he said: "You know the garage? It was me, I was desperate. I owed people money."
During an interview he made a full admission and described the offence and how he threw the hatchet in a river afterwards.
Maxwell's defence counsel Laura Reilly said he had owed money and decided to rob the petrol station to repay his debt.
"He was very apologetic he had become involved in this and particularly that a woman had been upset and scared as a result of his actions," she told the court.
The lawyer said that police who interviewed him had commented that they had never experienced such a level of honesty.