A MAN has appeared in court charged with a spree of knifepoint robberies.

Danny Glass is accused of two robberies and two attempted robberies in Colchester within the space of just over an hour early on Saturday morning.

Victims had a blade held to them and their hooded attacker is then said to have threatened them and demanded they hand over cash and mobile phones.

Glass is accused of robbery in Haven Road where he is said to have made off with a woman’s handbag containing a passport, banks cards and a phone were taken and a second raid in the same area where a man’s cash, phone and card was taken.

He is also said to have tried to rob a man in an alleyway off Kendall Road before pushing him to floor and then physically jumped on a man in James Street in an unsuccessful attempt to get his belongings.

Police launched an investigation in the wake of the spate of robberies and issued a warning to the public.

All of the victims were left shaken by what had happened but none of them were harmed.

Glass, of Haven Road, Colchester, is separately charged with criminal damage to his former partner’s car last month.

The 30-year-old is said to have headbutted the car windscreen and damaged the bodywork using a key fob as she was driving into a car park.

He denied the criminal damage charge at Colchester Magistrates’ Court and will stand trial back at the same court on March 25. Glass was not asked to enter a plea for the robberies but is expected to deny the four charges at a plea and trial preparation hearing at Ipswich Crown Court which has been scheduled for next month.

Raph Piggott, representing, Glass, applied for bail but magistrates remanded him in

custody until his crown court date.

Another man arrested on the day of the robberies has been released under investigation by police.