A teenager has been jailed for more than seven years for his role in a burglary where the victim was left so terrified after being shown a gun he jumped off his balcony.

Raphael Audain-Reason, 18, now of Mitcham Lane, Streatham, denied aggravated burglary when he appeared at Kingston Crown Court for his trial last week.

But the teenager, a former pupil at Southborough High School, was found guilty of aggravated burglary with an imitation firearm in Lavender Hill in Battersea on June 19 last year.

He was sentenced to seven years and six months in a young offender’s institute today.

His accomplice Vitor Almeida, 18, of Stockwell Road, Lambeth, who also denied the charge was sentenced to six years in a young offender’s institute.

During the trial the court heard victim Edward Graham suffered a broken ankle as he fell to the ground from his flat balcony and his cousin who was visiting at the time escaped the flat by climbing down a drainpipe.

Prosecutor Simon Sandford said: “Fearing for his life Mr Graham was so frightened that he ran to the balcony of this flat and jumped off the balcony.

“He recalled the men shouting ‘Where is it? Where is the gold? Where is the money?’ before he hit the ground.”

The court heard the defendants had come into the flat socially.

Mr Graham asked them to pop to the shop to get some water for him - but when they returned and left again, the front door had been left open allowing a balaclava-clad man with a pistol to enter.

Mr Sandford likened it to that of a bank robbery where each person has their own role, such as a look-out, a getaway driver and the person taking the goods.

Jurors heard the victim had known Mr Almeida because he had visited his aunt who lived in the same block and stayed with her after his mother had remarried for a few months.

Following the burglary two mobile phones, keys, two bags containing documents, cards, a wallet, bank cards, money and Mr Graham’s daughter’s birth certificate, as well as a ring, were stolen.