Thug gang robbed 6 victims in 90 minutes
Yobs targeted Northern Quarter revellers in brutal city centre rampage:
A TRIO of vicious robbers terrorised Manchester’s Northern Quarter as they committed six robberies in just 90 minutes.
They got a taxi into town at 2am before targeting vulnerable revellers at the end of their nights out. The thugs surrounded their victims and attacked them with punches, stamps and kicks before fleeing with their valuables.
They inflicted serious injuries. Victims were left with fractured jaws, damaged vertebrae and broken ribs. Some were in hospital for weeks.
The gang ripped a clump of hair from one woman who fought back. They celebrated their night’s work with a meal at McDonald’s.
Now the three Romanian nationals, two of whom came to the UK having been convicted of serious crimes on the continent, have been sentenced at Manchester Crown Court for their part in seven robberies.
Adrian Farrow, prosecuting, said: “The defendants carried out a concerted campaign of robbery, gratuitous violence and fraud against vulnerable victims in a small area of Manchester city centre.”
He described how the trio had taken a taxi from Oldham into Manchester ‘for the express purpose of committing robberies.’
CCTV showed the three – cousins Samuel and Adi Cretu, both 21; and a boy of 15 who cannot be named for legal reasons – alighting the taxi at about 2am on January 5 on Tib Street.
The cousins were captured urinating against scaffolding before the trio surrounded their first victim.
The Cretus punched him and pinned him against a wall while the teenager kept look-out.
Adi Cretu stamped on and kicked the victim’s head while the youth rifled his pockets. As the victim lay unconscious on the ground, the three robbers are seen walking away with his mobile and wallet.
The man was taken to hospital, where he needed surgery to insert metal plates for a fractured jaw.
The robbers struck again five minutes later on Oldham Street, targeting a man who appeared to be drunk, eating a takeaway. The trio returned to Tib Street, where their next victims were a group of friends.
One of the friends felt her bag being grabbed and saw one of the men unzip it, remove her purse and take out a £20 note before snatching her phone during the resulting scuffle. When the victim’s male friend tried to retrieve the stolen valuables, he was pushed to the ground and kicked in the chest.
The trio moved on to their next victim, who was making her way across Piccadilly Gardens when she was attacked.
CCTV captured her being confronted by the three, first Adi Cretu and then the youth while Samuel Cretu looked on.
When her phone was grabbed, the woman chased Adi Cretu and even rugby tackled him to the ground and got him in a headlock. But the others caught up and she felt someone grab her hair. A two or three-inch clump of her hair was ripped from her scalp.
They struck again on Faraday Street, where they targeted a bar worker who was closing up for the night. They made a grab for his phone, but their victim saw them off by threatening them with a pole with which he had been closing the shutters.
They moved back to Tib Street, where they attacked another victim at 3.29am. Adi Cretu grabbed his phone and the youth punched him in the head and pushed him to the floor. Adi Cretu kicked him while he was on the floor.
Their victim managed to alert a passing police patrol, but only realised the extent of his injuries the next day when he went to hospital and a CT scan revealed fractures to his vertebrae.
He told police his tormentors were ‘organised, vicious and seemed to enjoy it,’ he said, adding: “As it unfolded, the violence was gratuitous. It seemed like they were having fun. It felt animalistic. I felt like their prey. They circled me like predators.” The robbers struck again on High Street where the victim recalls being kicked while he was on the floor before someone rifled through his pockets. By 4.11am the robbers had returned to Oldham to celebrate at McDonald’s.
The trio stuck again a week later, at 4am in Oldham town centre, when they carried out another attack on a man after he had left Liquid nightclub.
The court heard Adi Cretu served time in his homeland for robbery, while his cousin Samuel was handed suspended sentences for robbery and violence in Valencia, Spain, in 2017 and 2018.
Rachel White, defending Samuel Cretu, said her client ‘accepts he’s guilty of a series of thuggish and nasty offences,’ but insisted there was a ‘different side’ to the defendant, who has a one-year-old son.
Dan Gaskell, defending the youth, said he was in a ‘very different situation’ to his co-defendants, adding that he was ‘not directly involved’ in any except two of the acts of violence.
Adi Cretu seemed to be amused as his barrister Paul Bryning told the court his client was ‘ashamed of his behaviour.’
Adi Cretu, 21, of Alton Street in Oldham, was jailed for six years and eight months.
Samuel Cretu, 21, also of Alton Street in Oldham, was jailed for six years and two months.
The youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a two-year youth rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and surveillance attached. He was also handed a 180-day activity requirement and placed on an electronicallymonitored curfew for three months.
They all admitted conspiracy to rob, and conspiracy to commit fraud and assault.
The Cretu cousins also admitted a further assault.