Four years in jail for role in two terrifying raids

8:47am Saturday 21st April 2007

A TEENAGER who took part in a revenge attack on a family and later acted as a getaway driver for a raid on a takeaway was yesterday jailed for four years.

Robert Ho was said to have been naive and easily led into joining more sophisticated criminals carrying out offences against other members of the Chinese community on Teesside.

The 19-year-old, who recently became a father, was told by a judge: "I hope when you have completed your sentence, you will disassociate yourself from those people."

Teesside Crown Court heard that Ho went with another man to a house in Billingham at 3am on September 20, last year, to seek revenge on a young woman who was said to have been responsible for splitting up a family.

But the attackers - both in dark clothing and armed with a crowbar - went to the wrong bedroom, and confronted the woman's aunt, whom they beat.

The victim's husband tried to wrestle the weapon from one of the intruders before they fled from the house, in Bonnington Crescent, leaving behind the bar, some tape and a glove which was forensically linked to Ho.

Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, said Ho was recruited by three other Chinese men - including the one with whom he carried out the Billingham attack - to raid a flat above a Stockton takeaway.

Ho drove the others to carry out a scouting mission on the Fortune Cookie, in Marske Road, late at night on October 22, before the gang retreated to Middlesbrough for a meal.

They returned to the takeaway several hours later, where they broke into the upstairs flat, bound and gagged a worker and stole £2,000 from the safe, along with £1,800-worth of jewellery and credit cards.

Dan Cordey, mitigating, said: "He is a naive and easily-led young man who, to a great extent, has been used by others."

Ho, of Aubrey Street, Middlesbrough, admitted two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and driving while disqualified, from the first offence, and charges of burglary along with two of driving while disqualified and without insurance from the second.

Judge Peter Fox told him: "Each was an appallingly frightening experience for the victim."