A young man who violently snatched a phone from a mother pushing a buggie has been jailed for two and a half years.

Herton Diansambu (21) was on bail for taking the €700 phone from a mother who was with her baby daughter and teenage son, 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 had planned to rob the man because “the boys were hungry” and that he didn't 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 21, 2016.

He also pleaded guilty to robbing the €700 phone from the woman at Church Road, Mulhuddart, Dublin 15 on July 7, 2016. He has no previous convictions.

Diansambu told gardaí that he lost the delivery man's phone, but spent the cash he'd robbed 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 buggie.

Gda 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 before.

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.

Gda 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.

Gda McCarrick agreed with Kenneth Kerins BL, defending, that his client had no previous convictions and has not come to adverse attention since August 2016. He further agreed Diansambu had a drug problem at the time.

Mr Kerins submitted to Judge Martin Nolan that his client's spate of offending appeared to have stopped and that he was getting treatment for his drug problem.

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 co-operated, made full admissions and was capable of reform.

He imposed a four year sentence with consecutive elements but suspended the final 18 months on account of Diansambu's young age and previous good record.

Online Editors