A one-time maths prodigy has been jailed for 10 years after robbing a casino at knife point and stealing £8,000 from his employer.
In his teens, Daniel Morris was one of five selected out of 10,000 whiz kids to be part of an elite maths training scheme. He went on to be part of a top property company and sold his shares in the business for £60,000.
But his life fell apart and now, aged just 26, he is facing 10 years behind bars for threatening a worker at Cashino in Sutton High Street with a knife and robbing £1,800 from the safe.
He has also been convicted of taking £8,000 from his employers at Iceland in Trafalgar Road, Greenwich, where he was a manager, and breaching restraining orders taken out by his ex-partner.
Father-of-two Morris, of Gladiator Way in Honor Oak, southeast London, was sentenced at Croydon Crown Court today.
The court heard how he, after selling his shares for £60,000 in 2007, got involved in drugs and gambling.
This led to the breakup of a relationship and he ended up being jailed for four years for a string of robberies at gaming establishments across south London in 2009.
Jason Seeboruth, defending, told the court how, on his release from prison in 2011, Morris tried to rebuild his life and set up a successful property company in Sutton High Street.
But the business started to struggle, leading him to more gambling problems and causing the break-up of his relationship with the mother of his two children. It also prompted him to take a job as a manager at Iceland in Greenwich.
In February he was entrusted with £8,000, the day's takings, to take to the bank but he disappeared with the money.
Then on June 7 he drunkenly went into Cashino at 8.18am and told the lone female member of staff he had been in the previous day and had lost his wedding ring so he needed to look for it.
As the member of staff entered a code to get into a staff-only area he appeared at her side and brandished a knife.
He knocked her to the ground then went into the private area and demanded she open the till. He got away with £1,800.
Cashino in Sutton High Street
He was arrested days later when police investigating calls and text messages he made to his ex in breach of a restraining order recognised his face from CCTV taken at Cashino.
Recorder Wright, sentencing, said: "You're simply wasting your life in terms of what you might achieve if you applied yourself lawfully."
He sentenced Morris to eight years in jail for the Cashino robbery, two years for the theft of money from Iceland to be served consecutively, and a month each for three breaches of a restraining order to be served concurrently.
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