A MAN was jailed has been jailed three years for a knifepoint robbery in his own home.

David Higgins, 37, held a knife to the throat of Paul Butler, 35, and made him hand over his wallet.

Then Higgins, of Park Road, and a friend Paul Emers, of Lilac Road, Primrose Hill, both Stockton, assaulted him in an alleyway and he needed hospital treatment.

Mr Butler met the pair in a pub and Higgins invited him back to his home, said prosecutor Sarah Mallett.

Mr Butler even stopped off at his home to pick up some beer.

He told police later that he was friendless after moving to Stockton from the south of England and he went to the pub because he was "sick at staring at the same four walls".

The judge at Teesside Crown Court said that Mr Butler was lonely, isolated and particularly vulnerable.

Recorder David Gordon told Higgins and 35-year-old Emers: "It was clear that he was glad of your company and he believed that he had made some new friends."

The judge said that Mr Butler at first thought that the knife incident was a joke, but the blade stayed held to his throat.

Then he was marched into the back alley where he was punched and kicked by both men.

The judge added: "It was a gratuitous attack, possibly to reinforce that he should not report the robbery.

"In interview both of you said that the robbery and assault did not happen. A jury did not believe you and both of you were convicted."

Graeme Gaston, defending Higgins, said it was not pre-planned and the pair had too much to drink and had also been smoking cannabis.

Duncan McReddie, defending Emers, said that he maintained his innocence.

Higgins was jailed for three years for the January 11 robbery and actual bodily harm assault, and Emers was jailed for 12 months for the assault.