A thief, who pretended to have a weapon during a raid on a Pets at Home store, has had his appeal against a jail sentence rejected.

Thirty-year-old Simon Hawkins was jailed for four years for stealing £90 of dog food in the robbery at the store in Reading last June, plus attempted theft from a Co-op in the town two weeks earlier.

Three Court of Appeal judges in London ruled the sentence was fully justified.

The court heard that Hawkins entered the Pets at Home, where he was already banned, and was seen to remove packs of dog food.

He showed a staff member what they thought was a weapon, but which he later claimed was the edge of a mobile phone.

"You know what's going to happen if you stop me," he told the shop assistant.

Mr Justice Spencer said Hawkins had behaved in a "thoroughly aggressive and unpleasant" manner.

"These were nasty offences," he said.

"Shop staff simply doing their job are entitled to the protection of the court from offending of this kind.

"There were no mitigating factors. We think an element of deterrence was properly to be included in the sentences as well.”

Hawkins’ lawyers had argued that a four-year sentence was excessive.