Two masked robbers from South-East London who stole £13,000 of phones from a Woking store after grabbing a terrified worker have been jailed by a Surrey court.

Joziah Carey-Nichols and Ousman Faal charged into a mobile phone shop in The Peacocks Centre just after 11am on Sunday, May 3, this year.

Guildford Crown Court heard the masked pair forcibly grabbed a member of staff and demanded her to open the locked cage at the rear of the shop where expensive handsets were kept.

The duo shoved the handsets worth more than £13k in total into a bag before fleeing through the shopping centre.

Investigating officers were able to identify the pair and trace them to London after Surrey Police made multiple enquiries and trawled through CCTV, ANPR and photo data.

The two offenders then got their own unwanted visit when officers knocked in their front doors to arrest them both for robbery and false imprisonment.

The 22-year-olds from Lewisham were sentenced today (Friday, September 25) having pleaded guilty to robbery in the face of overwhelming evidence. Faal was sentenced to three years in prison, while Carey-Nicholas was given two-and-a-half for his part in the distressing event.

“I can only imagine how frightening this was for the shop staff,” said PC Luke Lightburn from Surrey Police’s Proactive Investigation Team.

“No one deserves to go into work and be threatened and intimidated,

“Our team worked tirelessly to piece together all the evidence, pursue these criminals into London and bring the consequences of their offences right back to their own front doors.”