“Rob... We all know that some shoplifters are only given small fines from the courts, even if they are carrying knives and other weppons. Even then the fools are are so far on the bones of there a** they can not afford to pay, so the courts sould sling them in the nick a few weeks, not tourther them, that going a bit far mate.This case is very diffrent, this ol' swine stated to use a knive, he sould be locked up and for a very long time.”

“Let me see if I understand this correctly. The defence for this mans actions were I got away with it for a while so i thought that it was ok to carry on stealing! What does this tell us about this mans intellect and/or his moral values? Presumably then he also would have thought that stabbing 2 young men who were just doing their job, was also ok had he not been caught. This man is a moron with a long and miserable history of offending. 4 years is a joke, lets face it he has shown little sign of change or rehab this far and he's 41 years old! In 4 years time he'll be back out, still a menace to the public and probably still an addict. Let's be honest prison does not rehabilitate and drugs are easily obtained inside.I know the 1 of the young men assaulted by Mr Phillips and regard the light sentence meted out to be an insult to a brave young man who unlike Phillips actually understands tha difference between right and wrong!”

“To claim Job Seekers Allowance¿ The claimant must be available for and show proof of actively seeking full time employment.¿
Was he actively seeking employment when he was slashing security guards and stealing from Tesco¿s? I can get my head around nicking food, but what was he going to do with the remote control, eat it? Sorry but I do not do sympathy!”

“As a security guard my self i think that mr philips should be given a stricter punishment.However the punishment i have in mind would involve a public flogging.What i cant understand,knowing the tesco security setup and the way it works is how this man got away with it for this long?!?I work in many different aspects of security and it is my belief that there is no possible excuse the tesco staff can have for not knowing what was going on and the means in which mr philips was trusting.My final point is this....When a shoplifter gets caught they usually get an £80 fixed penalty notice,despite on several occasions the offenders having knives,bats,or needles on them at the time.They cannot in most circumstances afford to pay the fine and therefore is a none punishment.We should take an example from the countries of the middle east and publicly humiliate and torture the individual until punishment is seen as served!!!!”

“it does disappoint me that people aren't even reading the article before making judgement the article is slanted and rightly so. The actions of Mike are completely and utterly wrong. But by his own admission he had been going on there for some considerable time, if the security guards knew he was a repeat shoplifter why weren't the police called and why was key confronted a way from. the general public.And why did it take the police eight days to find him this was a very serious incident and and he was already known to the police. the answer is quite clear because the assault did not take place in view of CCTV therefore the police only had a verbal description of this man and had to do some investigating to come up with him so the question has to be what was going on when this man had to resort to slashing to a security . by no means do I condone what happened but the something not been stated in this story from my own conversations with the the offender the question to be raised as how many security guards attempted to challenge him and from his own point of view why did the letting go in their every day to take anything you wanted . This is a man with serious drug addiction than admit it to all the charges posed against him this is a man who could go into prison and seriously we rehabilitated everybody seems to be condemning this man without knowing the full case . Knowing the ascendant as well I know he's resorted to shoplifting as he had no money, and was waiting some considerable time for a payment from jobseekers allowance is unfortunate there such like payment resorted into such an unfortunate series of events were 2 men get stabbed and a third has a utility taken away from him. It's only fortunate that it wasn't much worse. I wish the guards a speedy recovery as clearly they are the only victims in all this.”

“Once againwe have proof that our judicial system is letting us down badly,This guy had previous for violence,and in mitgation he is sorry,Yes,sorry he got caught,Why do we always let them plead the use of substances,Who cares, Slam the scumbag in prison for ten years,with no early get out.finally, lets bring a system in where we vote judges in and out, If the public think they are not doing their jobs properly they can throw them out of their little plush jobs.I think they would soon learn what the public wanted.Don't you,?.”

“He was stealing from Tesco and for some reason he thought they knew but were letting him get away with it???
Yeah right ok Michael, thats one for Mulder and Scully !!!Why should somebodys CHOICE to take drugs have to impact on some else¿s life?”

“I know mike and he does have a drug problem now he is in jail i hope he gets help to sort it out and get his life back on track”

“Whilst Tesco rake in millions of pounds a year in profits these employees suffer incidents of abuse every week. They have very little help or support from their employer. For years the staff have been asking for more security and help from the authorities in this store, but to no avail. Quite often untrained staff have to apprehend and physically hold down violent shoplifters when theres no security on duty, and then wait over an hour for police to arrive whilst trying to contain idiots like Phillips. The severity of this incident is fortunately rare, but nevertheless there are regular assaults and abuse on staff at this store that go unreported and are counted as 'part of the job'. Mr. Tesco ought to put his hand in his deep pockets and get some proper, full-time security measures in place to at least protect the staff who are only trying to do their jobs. On this occasion there were security staff on duty who were trained to deal with it.
The guys that restrained this idiot are heros, they could of easily let him walk away rather than risk been attacked.(which is quite often the case when theres no security on duty). But to their credit they approached and restrained this guy despite the threats of violence that Phillips warned them of.
They will suffer physical and mental scars for the rest of their lives, I wonder if they think it was worth it. 4 years is a disgrace. It was a frenzied attack that could quite easily have resulted in death.”

“Bear in mind you get 15 years for VAT fraud. This country is a joke... any wonder its in a rayte mess.”