A tattooed robber who tried to bite his victim as he wrestled away her mobile phone has been given a suspended sentence.

David Pollard, 42, was in desperate need of a heroin fix when he attacked Bradford University student Sulufa Saeed in October last year, Bradford Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Ewan McLachlan said Pollard had approached Miss Saeed and asked her for the time. Because she does not wear a watch she got out her mobile phone.

Pollard then made a lunge for the phone and, despite a spirited attempted to keep hold of her property, Pollard twisted Miss Saeed's arm and was able to grab the phone.

Miss Saeed was able to identify her attacker to the police because of distinctive tattoos on his neck, knuckles and arms and she also picked him out in an identity parade.

But when he was interviewed by police he denied any involvement claiming that he had been selling a car with a friend at the time of the daytime attack in Canterbury Avenue.

Pollard, of Meggison Close, Canterbury, had been due to stand trial last month but before a jury was sworn in he pleaded guilty to a charge of robbery.

His barrister Richard Mansell urged the judge not to send his client to prison and said Pollard wanted to be rid of his 15-year heroin addiction.

Mr Mansell told Bradford Crown Court that drugs had cost Pollard his relationship with his partner and the defendant was shocked by what he had done.

The Honorary Recorder of Bradford, Judge Stephen Gullick, said that he was prepared to give Pollard a chance to change.

He sentenced him to 51 weeks in prison suspended for two years and ordered that he attend the addressing substance-related offending programme.

"This was a nasty offence committed against a female student who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Judge Gullick.