A SERIAL robber who threatened young boys with a knife and then stole their bikes was jailed for five years yesterday.

Mark Blyth, 20, of Runnymede Close, Stockton, admitted the robberies at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

Tony Calloway, prosecuting, said the offending began on September 18 last year when Blyth, a drug addict, had approached a 15-year-old near the Nuffield Hospital, Norton, and asked the time.

He then pulled a knife and said: "Give me the bike or I'll knife you." He stole the bike, said Mr Calloway.

The following day, at 5.25pm, in Hardwick, Stockton, he robbed a 13-year-old of his bike, he said, pushing him off the cycle and drawing the knife.

On September 20, Mr Calloway said, an 11-year-old was riding his bike in Stockton and Blyth approached him, told him to get off the bike or he would hit him.

Blyth put the bike into the back of a car.

Nine days later, a nine-year-old boy was cycling in Stockton when Blyth pushed him off his bike.

On December 4 at 4.05pm, said Mr Calloway, a 64-year-old woman was walking along Durham Road in Stockton when she heard someone running behind her.

She was pushed to the ground by Blyth , who ran off with her handbag, he said.

Nigel Soppitt, for Blyth, said his client was hopelessly addicted to drugs and he had been under a lot of pressure because of his drugs debt.

He still had his mother's support, said Mr Soppitt and the court heard that Blyth's mother believed he had been forcibly injected with heroin when he was 15, and had been addicted ever since.

Mr Soppitt told Judge John Walford that, while remanded in custody, Blyth had been taking courses.