A crack cocaine addict who held up a petrol station assistant at knifepoint has been jailed for 42 months.

Bradford Crown Court heard on Wednesday that 32-year-old Craig Metcalfe actually knew the assistant, Andrea Rushworth, and even said hello to her when he went into the premises in Park Lane, Keighley, last month.

Prosecutor Robert Blantern said Metcalfe then produced a large kitchen knife which he pointed at her saying: "Give me the money Andrea or I'll stick you". Metcalfe, of Woodhouse Grove, Keighley, took about £180 from the till before telling the assistant: "You can grass me if you want to - it's up to you".

He was arrested the next morning and when police officers searched the address they found a knife matching the description given by the petrol station assistant.

Although Metcalfe's barrister Timothy Stead accepted a knife had been brandished, he suggested to Judge Roger Scott that it was as relaxed a knifepoint robbery as he had ever encountered.

"The defendant committed this offence - as I'm sure you are well aware - with a craving for crack cocaine," he told the judge.

Mr Stead revealed that Metcalfe had started using the Class A drug following the deaths of his parents and sister, and at the time of the robbery he had debts of various kinds totalling £8,000. Judge Scott said Metcalfe would receive full credit for his early guilty plea to the robbery charge, but a longish sentence was still inevitable because people who worked in shops and petrol stations had to be protected.