Shopkeeper Dinesh Joshi’s anger over Lockwood robbery sentence

Mar 3 2010 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Dinesh Joshi

“NAME and shame the thugs.”

That was the call from a Huddersfield shopkeeper as a teenager who tried to rob him at gunpoint was locked up for three years.

The boy, now 16, was in the dock at Bradford Crown Court to admit robbery but a judge ruled that he should not be named, despite an appeal from the media that his identity should be revealed.

But his victim, Lockwood shopkeeper Dinesh Joshi, believes he has no right to have his identity protected.

“People should know who this boy is and know who carries a gun in Huddersfield.

“It is wrong that the courts seem more concerned about a criminal’s rights than the rights of the victim.

“It is terrible that he cannot be named. He has been sentenced and jailed and people should know who he is”.

The boy tried to rob Mr Joshi, 52, at his shop last November, threatening him with what turned out to be an imitation gun.

But Mr Joshi and his mother, Mrs Maniben Joshi, 76, who was in the shop at the time, fought back.

They hit the masked robber with a walking stick and he fled from the shop empty-handed.

The case comes only days after the terrible murder of Huddersfield shopkeeper Mr Gurmail Singh by a gang of thugs.