A drug addict carried out three raids on shops in Edinburgh on two nights, including one where he slashed a man in the face with a broken bottle.

Anil Chhabra said Salvatore Sivero, 24, hit him repeatedly on the head with a vodka bottle, before striking him with the broken remains.

Sivero then made off with almost £300 from the BP garage on Barclay Place, leaving Mr Chhabra covered in blood and with part of his nose lying in the till.

Sivero, who told police he was spending £100 a day on cocaine, was jailed for a total of six years at Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday.

Mr Chhabra had to undergo plastic surgery and a skin graft for the injury to his nose and will be scarred for life.

He said: "He handed me a £2 coin so I was getting him change. When I bowed my head to get the money out, I just felt a sharp pain in my head and then there was blood everywhere."

He said he was hit so hard that the bottle smashed leaving shards of glass embedded in his head. When Mr Chhabra fell backwards, Sivero lunged towards his face with the bottle and sliced off part of his nose.

Sivero had pled guilty previously to three charges of assault and robbery and sentence was deferred for background reports.

In the other two robberies, Sivero – whose address was given as Saughton prison – also hit shopkeepers on the head with bottles.

At 2.15 am on April 14 this year, Sivero went into the Scotmid store in Raeburn Place. He approached the assistant, Abhishek Kunati, and asked for cigarettes.

He then handed over a £5 note and when Mr Kunati went to open the till for change, Sivero produced a wine bottle and told his victim: "Don't do anything. Give me money or I'll hit you with this bottle".

Sivero struck him on the forehead with the bottle, took £150 from the till and ran off.

At 2am, four days later, Sivero carried out the robbery on the BP filling station in Bruntsfield.

At 5.45 the same morning, Sivero went into the Scotmid store in Leith Walk and approached assistant, Peter Schonpflug, with some milk.

Again, he handed over a £5 note and when the assistant went to the till, Sivero struck him over the head with a bottle, which broke on impact. He made off with £100.

The Fiscal said the raid on the petrol station shop had been caught on CCTV and police arrested Sivero in a hostel in Haddington Place on April 19.