A man has been jailed for six years following a violent armed robbery at a Nisa Local store in Aberdeen.

The incident happened at the convenience store on Heathryfold Circle Street on 25 October last year.

Joseph Bissett, 42, pleaded guilty to assault and robbery and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment, after he repeatedly attacked a female store worker with a baseball bat and threatened to kill her.

Bissett, who has 48 groups of previous convictions spanning 1998 to 2017, including 17 prior sentences of imprisonment, also admitted a charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner at a Premier store on Marchburn Drive, Aberdeen, the same day.

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said: “These offences are deplorable, and the only possible disposal in your case plainly requires to be a lengthy custodial one.

“Your first victim was a vulnerable male, your weapon being a metal pole, and your second victim was a shop assistant who was engaged in the course of her employment, whom you attacked by repeated blows to her head and body with a baseball bat.

“In these circumstances the crimes on the current indictment which the court must sentence you for today represent a considerable and concerning escalation in the nature and gravity of your offending.”

The sentencing comes after a number of recent convictions for armed robberies across the UK, including a man jailed for six-and-a-half years in total following an attempted armed robbery at a convenience store in Clacton and four men jailed for four years each following a burglary at a Co-op Group store in West Yorkshire.