A BLACKBURN teenager jailed for a £20,000 armed raid in which a guard was cold-bloodedly shot in the leg has had five years added to his ‘unduly lenient’ sentence by top judges.

David Jordan Evans, now 21, was originally jailed for 10 years at Preston Crown Court in May after he was convicted of conspiracy to rob and of carrying a handgun with intent to rob.

Lord Justice Hughes, who increased Evans’ sentence to 15 years, said the prime mover in the December 2008 raid was Evans’ accomplice, 23-year-old Dean Farrell, who fired a pistol bullet into security guard Imran Aslam’s leg.

Ms Aslam, 34, was handing over a cash box in Preston Old Road, Cherry Tree, when he was attacked delivering the money to an ATM outside an estate agents’.

Farrell alone was also convicted of wounding with intent in relation to the shooting.

He fired two warning shots at the guard before blasting him at close range, the court heard, lodging a bullet in his leg as he placed his cash box on the ground.

Evans, of Bonsall Street, Blackburn, had a record for offences of dishonesty before the cash raid, said Lord Justice Hughes, who concluded that his original sentence was clearly too short.

Evans’ ‘responsibility’ for the robbery was identical to Farrell's, he noted, although their ‘precise roles may not have been identical’.

Farrell had received an indefinite sentence of imprisonment for public protection which is almost identical to a life term.

Lord Justice Hughes, sitting with Mr Justice Owen and Mrs Justice Thirlwall, increased Evans’ sen-tence after hearing arguments that the 10-year term as ‘unduly lenient’.

Following the decision Detective Inspector Paul Broxson, who led the original investigation, said: “In sentencing, the judge said the starting point for the Cherry Tree robbery because of the circumstances, use of violence and use of a firearm was 15 years.

"Then he sentenced David Evans to 10 years. It was clearly a mistake on his part. This ruling has just rectified the mistake.”

“He wasn’t the shooter, but he was part and parcel of it and stood by and watched while Dean Farrell shot the guard.”