TEENAGE robbers stalked a couple before trying to steal their phones and a handbag in a park.

Kudzai Chemhuru and Denis Minkovski followed Daniel Drummond and Georgia Hook on bicycles in Palatine Park, Worthing, on October 12 last year.

The couple had gone for some food early in the evening and returned to the park, but as they sat down they were attacked.

Chemhuru sprayed Mr Drummond with a deodorant can, then put him in a headlock and repeatedly punched him after demanding a mobile phone.

“See you are going to die, fam,” he told him.

Minkovski grabbed Miss Hook’s handbag. She punched him but he was able to get away.

A group of youths intervened and police later arrested the duo.

They appeared for sentencing at Lewes Crown Court yesterday, where Judge Christine Laing QC jailed 18-year-old Chemhuru for a total of three years, and told Minkovski, also 18, to complete 150 hours of unpaid work.

Chemhuru, of Goring road, Worthing, has seven previous convictions for 23 offences, which include robbery and selling drugs.

Daniel Frier, for Chemhuru, said the teenager had had a difficult past, having been abandoned by his mother in Zimbabwe, and had

fallen into the trap of

being involved with London gangs.

But Judge Laing QC told him: “You have an appalling record, despite lots of help in the past two years to get you on a path where you can be a valued member of society. You have spectacularly failed to take that help.

“Now you need to grow up and take responsibility for your actions.”

Chemhuru admitted assault with the intent to commit robbery in August, but just days later police caught him carrying class A drugs and a knife in Monks Recreation Ground in Lancing.

Aspiring chef Minkovski, of Worthing, admitted robbery.

He has no previous convictions and said he wanted to turn his life away from crime.

Judge Laing told him: “Your role was every bit as serious, attacking a woman then running off like a coward.

“I’m glad she punched you, I just wish she had managed to do it harder.”