Leanne Slater, already in prison for heroin dealing, yesterday admitted her role as fearful accomplice in a savage wallet and phone snatch

Leanne Slater, already in prison for heroin dealing, yesterday admitted her role as fearful accomplice in a savage wallet and phone snatch.
drug dealer and prostitute who took part in a vicious robbery where a man’s skull was fractured with a metal bar has to spend another three years behind bars.
She was a working girl when she met a regular customer, single 58-year-old Dennis Craig, on the corner of Cranbourne Terrace and Yarm Road in Stockton.She took him into an alleyway, where he heard footsteps and realised too late “something was amiss” at about 11.30pm on April 7 last year.He was attacked with a 4ft long metal bar, prosecutor Christopher Attwooll told Teesside Crown Court.He was struck to the head and elbow. When he fell to his knees, he was hit to the head again, leaving him semi-conscious. His trouser pockets were rifled and his phone and wallet containing £60 taken.At hospital, it was discovered he had a fractured skull, elbow and ribs, along with bruising.He still has a facial scar, the court was told.The other robber, said to have wielded the bar and delivered the bone-breaking blows, has never been identified.Robert Mochrie, defending, said that man was the main offender and heroin addict Slater, of Springholme Terrace, Stockton, was scared of him.She knew a robbery or theft was about to happen, but had no idea that her associate would launch such a “barbaric” assault.“When this horrific attack took place, Miss Slater was terrified. So much so that at the time she was terrified that this man was going to be killed.”Yesterday a judge, Recorder Paul Isaacs, said Mr Craig could have been killed and Slater could have been facing a life sentence.
He accepted she was afraid, less involved than the male assailant and did not know a weapon or such serious violence would be used.He jailed her for three years, added to the 30 months she is still serving for conspiring to supply heroin - a crime she admitted last October.