Street thugs Roland Berko and Erik Mata locked up for terrifying Dover robberies
Two ruthless muggers target vulnerable victims in January 2019
Roland Berko, 22, and Erik Mata, 19, terrorised a vulnerable man and a teenage boy in separate street robberies across Dover in early January 2019.
The pair were found guilty this March after a kent-police/" title="Kent Police" data-wpil-keyword-link="linked">Kent Police probe. On Tuesday 27 July 2021, Canterbury Crown Court handed down hefty sentences—Berko got six years and nine months behind bars, while Mata was locked up for four years in a young offenders’ institution.
Attack details revealed: Fake cop and knife threats
The first chilling robbery unfolded on 4 January 2019. Berko, Mata, and a third man followed a vulnerable man in his 30s into a back alley on Folkestone Road. One fake-cop shouted, “I am a police officer, give me your bag.”
Despite the victim clinging to his bag, they dragged him along the alley, ripping it off his back and stealing money, bank cards, bus pass, and mobile phone before he managed to escape and alert police.
A few days later on 7 January, the duo struck again. At a bus stop on London Road, Dover, the teenage boy was lured around the corner into Templar Street by Berko, Mata, and a third male.
There, they surrounded him and one pulled a small knife threateningly while rifling through his pockets, stealing his cash and phone.
Additional burglaries landed Berko extra jail time
Berko’s sentence also covered two separate burglaries in Dover, including stealing electrical goods from a house on Leighton Road in December 2018 and snatching a key from a property on De Burgh Hill in January 2019.
Kent Police slam violent offenders as ‘danger to community’
Kent Police’s lead investigator Lyndsey Read blasted the thugs: “These two men targeted the young and vulnerable and subjected them to terrifying robberies.”
“Kent Police is committed to protecting the most vulnerable in society and that involves getting justice for them after offences like this are committed.”
“These sentences will see both men removed from the streets of Dover and unable to target others in future.”
