TWO MEN have been given seven-year sentences for a “brutal and vicious” armed robbery during which they stabbed a garda who had helped foil the crime.
Xiang Cheng (25) and Qian Cheng (28), also known as Jian Gong Ten, both Chinese nationals of no fixed abode, were found guilty by a jury on day seven of their trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in April of assaulting Garda James Hendrick at Main Street, Raheny on July 13th, 2005.
The jury found them not guilty on a second charge of intentionally or recklessly causing Garda David Comer serious harm.
Both had denied these charges but pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and the false imprisonment of Xiao Mei Ma, aka Doris; Ju Liu Yong, aka Angela; and Yu Ting, aka Austin, in their house at Main Street, Raheny on the same date.
The jury heard that Garda Hendrick and Garda Comer thought they were going to be killed by a balaclava-masked man wielding a knife who repeatedly stabbed them after they foiled the Chinese gang who had tied up and held fellow-nationals captive.
Judge Tony Hunt described them as a “gang of bandits” who had “devised a very significant plan that had involved considerable thought and premeditation”.
“The house was well watched prior to the robbery and they made sure that only vulnerable women would be there.” He said it was “very clear” they knew what they were looking for but accepted that other “more sinister individuals” were more involved in the crime.
Judge Hunt was told that both men were illegally in the State after their applications for asylum had failed and they were due for deportation on their release.
He imposed seven years for the aggravated burglary and false imprisonment charges but suspended the last 2½ years because of their guilty pleas and on condition that they leave Ireland on their release and not return for 10 years unless they are required to give evidence in another trial.
He sentenced them to concurrent terms of four years for assaulting Garda Hendrick who, Judge Hunt said, along with Garda Comer, was “unfortunate enough to come on the scene when the men were still there”.
Garda Hendrick said in evidence that it “felt like an eternity” while he said Garda Comer was “fighting for his life” while being stabbed after he fell into a bath in the house.
Garda Hendrick said he thought he was also “going to die” when cornered after getting his colleague out of the bath when trying to force the frenzied knifeman off him with one hand and call for help with his phone in the other hand.
“When you know that the colleague you were laughing with in the car earlier is now in the bath fighting for his life, it feels like a long time,” Garda Hendrick said.