A FORMER prostitute and her brother have been sentenced for robbing a man in an Oxford park.

Jason and Annette Stanmore stole £50 in cash from Umar Qureshi and used his bank card to withdraw a further £150.

Kate Mallison, prosecuting at Oxford Crown Court, said the victim was walking along Cowley Road to Kebab Kid on September 18 when the pair threatened him with a knife.

The Stanmores’ barristers claimed Mr Qureshi had propositioned Annette for sex and was robbed when Jason found them in Cowley Marsh Park.

But Judge Christopher Compston told them: “I don’t accept your version of what occurred. So what? There is nothing to justify the robbery.”

The Stanmores, both of Shepherds Hill, Greater Leys, admitted robbery on the day a trial was set to take place. Jason Stanmore also asked for four other “dishonesty offences” to be taken into consideration.

Miss Mallison said: “Mr Qureshi went to get to some food from Kebab Kid and left his home at about 11.30pm.

“As he was going down the Cowley Road he was approached by a woman who pushed him into a man, who was Mr Stanmore.”

She said Jason Stanmore produced a “large ordinary kitchen knife” and said “keep your mouth shut and walk with me”.

The 25-year-old has several previous convictions for robbery and was jailed for four years in 2005 for attempted robbery. Among 26-year-old Annette Stanmore’s previous convictions are shoplifting, battery, burglary and robbery.

Jonathan Coode, defending Jason Stanmore, said: “He maintains and has always maintained that Mr Qureshi has not been entirely frank. He was a customer of (Annette’s) that he followed in to the park and that they were just about to engage in a sexual act when he arrived.

“He was angry, more with his sister than anything else. I am not for one moment suggesting it was justified, it just explains how he got involved.”

He added: “The background to all this is drugs. It always has been with Jason Stanmore. It’s always drugs, always trying to get off them and then trying to get some money when he finds he cannot manage to stay off drugs.”

Lucy Tapper, defending Annette Stanmore, said her client, whose partner Devon McPherson was murdered in East Oxford in May 2009, had dreams of becoming a dancer but was “blighted with drugs from a very young age” and had been a sex worker for eight years.

She said: “She’s now clean of methadone and has not reached that point for eight years. She’s very pleased with herself and rightly so.”

Annette Stanmore, who had served the equivalent of a 12-month prison sentence on remand, was given a year’s imprisonment, suspended for 24 months. She was also given 12 months’ supervision and a six-month drug-rehabilitation requirement.

Jason Stanmore, who Judge Compston called “a highly unpleasant and difficult person”, was jailed for three years.