An armed gang who burst into a house making threats of violence and demanding cash had got the wrong address.
A court heard how the three men — one of whom was brandishing a foot-long wrench — subjected the family to a terrifying ordeal in the mistaken belief they had a safe containing £50,000 in the property.
Two of the trio remain at large but one was tracked down after police recovered a finger print from the house in Neath .
Michael Kenneth Evans, 29, had previously pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary when he appeared via videolink at Swansea Crown Court for sentencing. He also asked for two unrelated matters — burgling a B&M store and taking a Mitsubishi Shogun without the owner’s consent — to be taken into account.
Two men burst in with their faces hidden
Robin Rouch, prosecuting, told the court that on the evening of May 13 the householder and her partner were sitting in the living room of the Melyn house watching TV while the woman’s young child slept upstairs.
Three men, two who of them with their faces hidden, then burst in.
The court heard the men where shouting at the couple, and demanding £50,000 from the house’s safe.
Evans then went upstairs and began searching for the non-existent safe, while the other two remained downstairs with the couple — at one stage one of the men swung the wrench at the man.
They fled empty handed
The court heard the trio then fled the scene empty-handed in a green Rover MG, the South Wales Evening Post reports .
Mr Rouch said police were later able to recover finger prints from the trap door leading to the attic that matched Evans’ — they were also able to establish the car, which had been fitting with cloned number plates, had been driven to Neath from the Merthyr area.
The barrister said there was no evidence that connected any other individuals to the raid.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman involved said the incident had initially left her unable to sleep in the house by herself, and had disrupted her daughter’s sleeping pattern.
The court heard Evans, from Heol Rhydd y Bedd, Pant, Merthyr, has a string of convictions starting when he was juvenile including arson and inflicting actual bodily harm, and in 2012 was sentenced to five years for a robbery in which he had again burst into a house with other men demanding money.
Recorder Gregory Bull QC told Evans he had subjected his victims to a terrifying ordeal in the hope of making a monetary gain but had acted on “bad information” and got the wrong address.
The judge sentenced him to 63 months in prison.
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/armed-gang-burst-house-foot-12032668
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