A bank robber left empty-handed after a cashier in Worcester Park told him to f*** off when he demanded money from her till.

Gary Thompson, 55, had been more successful just 13 days before when he walked out of a Nationwide bank in London Road, Morden with £3,305, claiming to have a bomb strapped to him.

That money has never been recovered.

Thompson was sentenced to seven and a half years in jail on Friday at Kingston Crown Court for the bank robberies which he claims were to pay off spiralling debts to drug dealers.

This was the 50th time Thompson had been before the courts, mostly for petty crimes apart from another armed robbery on the Prince of Wales in Cheam in 1997.

The court heard how Thompson had targeted the Halifax in Central Road, Worcester Park on January 29, threatening staff and customers with an imitation gun.

Cashier Sandra Warren told Thompson to "f*** off" and then walked into the bank’s back office meaning he had left empty handed.

Defence counsel Alexander Gorst argued that Thompson, of Redwing Road, Wallington, turned to drugs after suffering from post-traumatic stress.

Mr Gorst said: "In 2013 he was attacked by some strangers and that played some part in this offence.

"These offences were to pay drug dealers. I don’t seek to undermine the stress suffered by the first victim. She described the ‘bomb’ as very crude. This was a crime of desperation."

Prosecutor Mark Gadsden said Thompson’s crimes had "deeply affected" his victims with some of the Morden bank staff not being able to return to work due to stress.

The court heard how he had received suspended sentences for actual bodily harm and theft just a month before the first robbery and will have to serve a further 18 months for these.

Judge Silas Reid said: "It seems inevitable to me you will commit other crimes when you are released.

"If you do not use this sentence to change, then you will commit other crimes and spend the rest of your life behind bars going in and out of prison."