A man who punched a woman pushing a buggy and snatched her phone has been jailed for 2½ years.
Herton Diansambu (21) was on bail for taking the €700 phone from the woman when he and a group of youths later robbed a delivery man.
The courier for Gourmet Pizza had followed instructions to go to the back of an address to make the delivery. He was met by a group of up to six youths who demanded the food, his money and phone.
The court head the injured party was at Blanchardstown Garda station to report the incident the next day when he recognised Diansambu, who had come in to fill out a passport application.
Diansambu later told gardaí he planned to rob the man because “the boys were hungry” and that he did not feel sorry for the injured party.
Diansambu, of Bealing Walk, Tyrellstown, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to robbing €130 of food, €50 cash and a phone at The Boulevard, Mount Garrett, Tyrellstown on August 21st, 2016.
He also pleaded guilty to robbing the €700 phone from the woman at Church Road, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15 on July 7th, 2016. He has no previous convictions.
Diansambu told gardaí he lost the delivery man’s phone and spent the cash taken on a bag of “weed”.
Garda Tom McCarrick told Lisa Dempsey BL, prosecuting, that Diansambu earlier robbed a mother who had been walking with her 13-year-old son and pushing her baby daughter’s buggy.
Garda McCarrick said the woman had been on her phone when she felt somebody put their arm around her neck as if to choke her. She said when she turned, she saw a young man she had walked by near a park seconds earlier.
The court heard she then saw the robber hit her teenage son and push him to the ground. Diansambu attacked the woman again, punched her, pulled her hair and shoved her over. He ran off into bushes with her phone when she fell on the ground.
Garda McCarrick said Diansambu was removed from the bushes by three men who had been working at a nearby garage. These men detained Diansambu until gardaí arrived and returned the phone to the woman.
Kenneth Kerins BL, defending, said his client had no previous convictions and had not come to adverse attention since August 2016. Garda McCarrick agreed that Diansambu had a drug problem at the time.
Judge Nolan noted that Diansambu’s second robbery had been premeditated and that there had been a threat of violence.
He described the earlier phone robbery as “pretty ferocious”, but accepted that Diansambu was capable of reform. He imposed a four-year sentence with consecutive elements but suspended the final 18 months on account of Diansambu’s age and previous good record.