A teenager who was part of a masked gang which broke into the home of an Ipswich man at night armed with machetes has been locked up for seven years.
Sentencing 18-year-old Baasit Khan, Judge Richard Kelly said the incident must have been terrifying for the victim - who woke up to find three armed strangers wearing balaclavas in his living room.
Ipswich Crown Court heard that during the incident the victim was bundled into a bathroom in his flat in Downside Close in Ipswich and was head butted and stabbed in the hand with a machete causing an injury.
Judge Kelly said there was an element of planning to the offence because the intruders had a photograph of the victim's flat on a phone and had driven round the area looking for the premises.
Khan, 18, who is of Castle Croft Road, Luton, denied an offence of aggravated burglary committed on December 28 last year but was convicted by a jury after a trial in May.
He had admitted possessing a small amount of cocaine which was found on him when he was arrested in January this year.
Khan was sentenced to seven years' detention in a young offenders' institution and will have to serve at least half of the sentence before he can be released on licence.
In a victim impact statement, the victim said he no longer felt safe in his own home and had been unable to afford to replace his son’s video game console which was stolen during the burglary.
The court heard Khan, who had only just turned 18 at the time of the offence, had started mixing with the wrong crowd during the Covid pandemic and had expressed remorse.
He was keen to train to be an electrical engineer and to lead a law abiding life.
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