Protection racket chief loses sentence appeal Gangland boss tried to extort £10,000 from city hairdresser
APROTECTION racket boss jailed for trying to extort £10,000 from a hairdresser after hiring thugs to beat the victim up has failed in a bid for freedom.
Min Fu, 39, pointed out the businessman after leading ten hooded thugs into a Chinatown karaoke bar in Birmingham.
The gang, armed with bars, knives, pepper spray and bottles, tried to attack the terrified hairdresser but he barricaded himself inside a room.
A total of £3,500 damage was caused during the raid at 100°C Ktv&Bar in Essex Street.
The victim had previously been attacked at his own business in a bid to force him to pay protection money.
He was so terrified by his ordeal that he did not give evidence against Fu in person before the gangland boss – convicted of blackmail, assault and violent disorder – was jailed for ten years at Birmingham Crown Court last April.
Now the criminal, of Warwick Road, Sparkhill, has lost his appeal against his conviction. Lord Justice Elias also upheld the length of Fu’s sentence and rejected his claim that what he had been involved in did not amount to a protection racket.
“This was a protection racket,” the judge said. “The fact it related to only one business is neither here nor there.
“These are extremely serious offences. They adversely affect commerce, they adversely undermine the confidence people have in the system of justice.
“There was significant violence and threats of violence committed in the course of these blackmail activities.
“A sentence of ten years was not, in our view, manifestly excessive.”
The court heard Fu and another man went to the hairdresser’s premises, demanding protection money in October 2015.
They returned and made similar demands again soon afterwards, when the victim suffered bruising in an assault.
Days later, the victim was at a private function at the Essex Street bar when Fu and others appeared.
Members of the group were armed with knives and machetes, causing the victim and others to barricade themselves in a room.
In his conviction appeal, Fu argued his trial was unfair because his lawyers had been unable to cross-examine the victim in court.
But Lord Justice Elias, sitting with Sir John Saunders and Judge David GriffithJones, rejected the complaint. Appeals against both conviction and sentence were dismissed.