A HOMELESS man has been jailed for nearly four years after he hurled a piece of stone at an unsuspecting nightclubber during an early hours robbery in Keighley.

Dalibor Grundza, 28, attacked Joshua Lorriman after he saw the 20-year-old sitting on the grass and using his iPhone in a town centre graveyard.

Prosecutor Andrew Horton told Bradford Crown Court today that Mr Lorriman had almost no memory of the attack, but CCTV footage captured Grundza approaching his victim from the rear and throwing a "sizeable stone" from almost point blank range.

The impact on Mr Lorriman's neck area caused him to fall to the ground and Grundza then hid in nearby bushes before re-emerging and punching his victim.

Mr Horton said the CCTV footage, which was not available to be shown in court, then captured Grundza going through the complainant's pockets and eventually walking off with the mobile phone.

The court heard that the police were alerted by a CCTV operator and Grundza was arrested nearby with the stolen phone on him.

Although Mr Lorriman did not need medical treatment straight away he went to the Bradford Royal Infirmary later the same day.

Mr Horton said the complainant had apparently suffered a kind of "whiplash" or concussion from the blow.

After his arrest Grundza said he had committed the offence because he needed money and today at his preliminary hearing before the crown court he pleaded guilty to the robbery charge.

The court heard that the robbery last month was committed only a month after Grundza had been made the subject of a community sentence for a house burglary.

His solicitor advocate Ian Hudson said Grundza, a Slovakian, had lived in the Keighley area for eight years, but he had become homeless in May after a relationship broke down.

Judge Jonathan Rose told Grundza via an interpreter that he had fallen on hard times, but had chosen to deal with that situation by resorting to crime.

Judge Rose said the defendant had been given an opportunity to stay out of prison by the magistrates and it was an aggravating feature of the robbery that it was committed a month after the imposition of the community order.

"It was a premeditated offence in the sense that you armed yourself with a stone, or part of a paving slab, for no other purpose than to commit an offence of robbery," the judge told Grundza.

"It was an offence committed in the early hours of the morning and you targeted a man who was vulnerable.

"More significantly he had no idea that you were about. You used the weapon. You threw it at him from, as the prosecution put it, point blank range and you caused him injury.

"I accept that the injuries sustained were not the most serious but the nature of the weapon used means they could have been far more serious and more to the point once you had disabled him by throwing the stone at him you continued to use unnecessary and unwarranted violence by punching him."

Judge Rose sentenced Grundza to 40 months in prison for the robbery offence and added a further four months to the sentence for the house burglary committed earlier this year.