JOBLESS and penniless, a hooded man armed himself with a kitchen knife and left his lodgings at night intent on robbery – and within minutes he had found his victim.

He targeted Southampton University student Chinnu Abrahams who had just left the campus. Walking alone with her iPhone, she became aware of a man acting suspiciously. He told her: “Hand me your phone or I’ll stab you.”

As he made his threat, she saw the knife with an eight inch blade pressed against her stomach.

A few days later, her attacker Lithuanian immigrant Dmitrij Dmitrijev sold the phone at a firm of pawnbrokers for £15.

Judge Gary Burrell QC heard Dmitrejev was caught after taking a stolen computer hard drive belonging to Connie Leung.

A police officer, who had been carrying out house to house enquiries about the computer hard drive theft, then recognised Dmitrijev as being a neighbour of the student.

Dmitrijev, 20, of Langhorn Road, Southampton , admitted robbery and handling and was jailed for four years.