A 21-year-old British man who targeted men in Manchester, UK's gay village and strangled them before robbing them has been jailed for nearly 9 years, Cumbria Crack reports:
In September 2016, police received their first report that [Mason] Shaw (pictured) had robbed a man in Oldham.
Between this incident in September and 10 December 2016, Shaw has committed a further six robberies, targeting people predominately around Manchester's gay village.
The court heard how Shaw would seek out people from this area, isolating them from the crowd, before strangling them until they lost consciousness.
At this point he would rob them before leaving his victims to come around.
A detective told the newspaper:
“Shaw has committed a number of robberies, clearly targeting members of the gay community, brutally taking their possessions from them. I cannot imagine what Shaw's victims must have gone through, being robbed and abandoned in such a terrifying way. Given the nature of these robberies, I am grateful that we've been able to secure such a long sentence for his heinous crimes. Today's result hopefully goes some way to reinforce that violent crime, of any kind, will not be tolerated in Greater Manchester.”
Through CCTV and DNA evidence, police were able to build a case around Shaw and had been treating the robberies as homophobic hate crimes, and the sentence was increased because of it.
Shaw has also been barred from entering Manchester's gay village for life.
