A SUFFOLK father of two is starting a four year jail sentence today after he threatened to rape and stab a teenage boy and then robbed him in the beer garden of a Suffolk pub.

A SUFFOLK father of two is starting a four year jail sentence today after he threatened to rape and stab a teenage boy and then robbed him in the beer garden of a Suffolk pub.

Mark Hinks, 31, who lived with his ex-wife and two daughters in Thatchers Walk, Stowmarket, was originally arrested and then discharged after the

incident in August last year but the case was brought to court after he was "grassed" by a friend.

After deliberating for 90 minutes, the jury at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday found Hinks guilty of robbing three teenage boys of £24 in the Royal Oak public house in Stowmarket.

In a witness statement by one of the boys, Andrew Ward, who is now 18, said Hinks approached him in the pub and told him to "give me your money or I'll bend you over that fence and rape you," and "I've got a knife and I will knife you".

Judge John Devaux described Hinks, who has a string of previous convictions for burglary and assault, as "a dangerous man" and said: "This was an extremely unpleasant incident and must have been very frightening for the boys involved. There is very little mitigation because you contested the case."