A 15-year-old school boy who held up a bank with an imitation firearm has been sentenced to 40 months in a young offenders centre.
The "top-set" schoolboy held up a branch of Barclays Bank on Breck Road, Walton with an imitation firearm and stole more than £2,000.
But his mother discovered the stash while tidying his bedroom and decided to report him after he admitted his crime in a family meeting around a living room coffee table.
The boy, who can't be named for legal reasons, said he had envied the material possessions of other people.
Liverpool Youth Court heard that he walked into the bank at Breck Road on September 20 and held up two cashiers saying: "I'm not messing around" before handing over a bag.
He said: "Fill that up with money. Don't do anything stupid. I've just got out of prison after five years."
The cashiers put a "dummy bundle" in the bag which is designed to detonate spraying the cash with dye.
The teenaged robber is said to have acted as if he was in a "real-life video game."
Defending Miss Teresa Lofthus said: "The boy is polite, courteous, obedient and a role model. Those who know him best are shocked."
Miss Lofthus told the court: "His home life cannot have been better or more loving.
"He is an intelligent young man who has shown some educational promise.
"His mother is angry and upset with her son but she feels a strong sense of responsibility.
"She is in a position in which she never dreamt she would find herself in a million years."
At an earlier hearing, the boy pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and one count of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.
District Judge Ian Lomax said: "This is a very serious matter. It's an armed robbery but not in the conventional sense most people would recognise.
"It's a bizarre, surreal case of a young man almost acting like a real-life action video game. Nevertheless it was a robbery."
The court heard that the boy did well at school and was not known for misbehaving.
Mr Lomax said his crime was "motivated by greed and immaturity" and by "whatever influences" he had been under in recent time.
The judge said those influences may include "another pupil or something you have been watching or playing".
The boy had been told to expect a custodial sentence.
