A 32-year-old Ipswich man was jailed for six years for the second time in a decade after a night security porter was tied up by two masked robbers who stole more than £3,000.

A 32-year-old Ipswich man was jailed for six years for the second time in a decade after a night security porter was tied up by two masked robbers who stole more than £3,000.

One of the robbers – Shaun Jacobs 32, of Ranelagh Road Ipswich, – was sent to prison after admitting his part in the robbery. He was jailed for one month to run consecutively for a bail offence.

Porter Neville Moore was forced to kneel down while his hands were taped behind him during the robbery in The Courtyard by Marriott Hotel on the outskirts of Ipswich.

At one stage Mr Moore started choking and had difficulties in breathing because of the way he was being held.

He was left shaken by the incident and was no longer able to work as a night porter because of what had happened, said Samantha Leigh, prosecuting.

Ipswich Crown Court heard that the man suspected as being Jacobs' accomplice had previously worked at the hotel and was currently on the run from police.

Jailing Jacobs, who was sentenced to a six year jail term in 1993 for robbery, judge John Holt said that although no weapons were used during the latest robbery violence had been used on an innocent man.

Miss Leigh told the court that Mr Moore had been watching television in a bar near the foyer of the hotel at about 3.15am when two men had rushed in.

Their faces were covered but he could tell they had white skin through cut out areas round their eyes and mouth.

The men grabbed hold of Mr Moore and restrained him while he attempted to struggle with them. At one stage he was held in a head lock before being forced to kneel down while his hands were taped behind his back.

The robbers asked him where the keys to the safe were and went into the reception area.

Mr Moore said he was having difficulties in breathing and was moved into a chair, said Miss Leigh. After the robbers had gone with more than £3,000 Mr Moore was able to alert the duty manager who untied him and called the police.

Mr Moore told officers that the robbers appeared to know their way around the hotel and it was later discovered that the man believed to have been Jacobs accomplice had worked at the hotel several months earlier as a porter.

Martyn Levett for Jacobs said his client had been a heroin addict for ten years. He said Jacobs had believed that a different night porter who was in on the robbery was going to be on duty on that night and not Mr Moore.