Customers jeered at man raiding pub with fake gun

CUSTOMERS in a pub jeered at a man who was carrying out a robbery with an imitation gun, a court has heard.

Anthony Burns, 43, robbed The Villager pub in Chapelizod, Dublin, on December 12 last year using a gun he had bought in a toy shop.

Oisín Clarke, defending, told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that customers jeered at Burns, telling him: ‘You’re not going to do anything with a plastic gun.’

Burns, a crack cocaine addict, took €520 of the pub’s takings from barman Shay Donnelly, but before he left, a customer hit him over the head with a bottle, the court heard.

Burns later got medical treatment for cuts to his head. Mr Clarke said the customers were ‘robust’ and carried out a citizen’s arrest.

While Burns was being held down on the floor, one customer asked him: ‘What are you doing?’ and he replied: ‘I’m a cocaine addict, I need money.’

Burns was jailed yesterday for three years. In his victim-impact report, Mr Donnelly said he had put the incident behind him and said he felt sorry for the accused.

Burns, of Rowlagh Gardens, Clondalkin, Dublin, pleaded guilty to robbery of the pub. He also admitted robbery of cash from a Subway restaurant in Clondalkin and attempted robbery of Rapeedos take-away in Palmerstown on the same date.

The former security guard also admitted robbing €820 from a bookmakers shop in Clondalkin village on December 5.

Mr Clarke said his client had become addicted to heroin at the age of 16 but later got work in security. Burns lost his job when the company went bust in 2014 and he began dabbling in cocaine.

Judge Melanie Greally imposed a five-year sentence with two years suspended. She said the offences were amateurish and seemed to be crimes of desperation. Burns’s previous convictions include false imprisonment, robbery and the unlawful seizure of a car in 2000.