Racist Leeds terrorist wielded hammer during shop raid after prison release

Jamie Anisko, also known as Jamie Snow, was deemed a “dangerous individual” after threatening the terrified convenience store owner before stealing cash, cigarettes and alcohol.

The 35-year-old was previously jailed in 2009 for armed robbery, but while behind bars plotted with another inmate to post explosives to an Asian solicitors firm. He was given another sentence of more than six years.

Despite being diagnosed with a severe personality disorder, he was eventually released in 2020, and targeted the Westbourne Convenience Store on Bradford Road in Otley at around 7pm on June 30 that year. Entering the shop wearing face coverings, he and an accomplice demanded the lone worker hand over money.

Anisko was brandishing a hammer, with the other male carrying a 9” knife. With little money in the till, Anisko grabbed a handful of coins amounting to £30, before they filled a bag full of cigarettes and whisky, prosecutor Gareth Henderson-Moore told Leeds Crown Court this week.

During the raid, Anisko’s mask slipped from his face and he was recognised by police from the shop’s CCTV. The accomplice received a 28-month jail sentence for his part. Anisko was returned to prison on licence to await sentencing.

Admitting the robbery, he was also found guilty of assaulting a prison officer while being held in HMP Nottingham, by headbutting and punching him in April 2020, shortly before his release.

Anisko has 31 convictions for 54 offences, most notably the robbery in 2009 in which he used a gun to threaten a victim. He and an inmate from HMP Full Sutton in York then plotted to blow up mosques and kill the imam – the prison’s Muslim leader – during a campaign of terror in 2014 fuelled by racial hatred.

They sent a letter to the solicitors firm which was intercepted by prison staff. It contained incendiary devices they assembled in their cells, made from crushed match heads and foil.

The court was told of further disturbing plans Anisko had drawn up after being returned to prison for the Otley robbery, including an intention up to kill and dismember a prison guard and even kill former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Mitigating, Nicholas Hammond said his personality disorder had meant Anisko, formerly of Pottertown, spent several years in the high-security psychiatric hospital in Rampton, in Nottinghamshire. He said he had a difficult upbringing in life, but conceded it was not an excuse.

Judge Christopher Batty said of the Otley robbery: “He (the shopkeeper) was doing his work, he was entitled to do it safely. You are a dangerous individual. Your personality disorder has prominent features and it causes changeable moods and instability.

"You can’t be treated for your personality disorder because you have been resistant to that in the past. You do present a significant risk to causing serious harm to members of the public.”

He was given an overall sentence of 10 years and nine months, made up of five years and nine months behind bars, and another five years’ extended licence period.