A BLACK Country raider, who was part of a three man gang that threatened to slit the throat of a terrified young Dudley mother, has been jailed for two and a half years.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how the gang broke into the Himley Road house and the frightened woman took refuge in a bedroom with her two children aged 18 months and four years.

The mother tried to call her partner on her mobile telephone when one of the burglars came into the room carrying a four inch kitchen knife, said Mark Rees prosecuting.

The call connected and the woman heard her partner on the other end of the line, but was too scared to speak to him as "the knifeman warned her that if she so much as murmured he would slit her throat," added Mr Rees.

The court heard how the woman's partner quickly returned and confronted the gang who fled the scene.

The men left a carrier bag behind in the back garden, which contained a computer game console they had taken from the property which bore the fingerprint of Amandeep Mehan.

From the fingerprint, police officers were able to trace the 27-year-old, from Wolverhampton, who had a string of previous convictions for offences including burglary and theft and was arrested by police officers six weeks later but the other two raiders had not been traced.

Mehan of Rosemary Crescent, Goldthorn Hill admitted burglary and was told only immediate custody was appropriate for the crime.

Tarlowchan Dubb defending said Mehan had acted as a look-out in the raid and he maintained he had no knowledge that one of the other men was armed with the knife