A Vietnamese menace to society who had 158 prior convictions when he snatched a baby from a pram on an Adelaide bus has walked free after being sentenced without further penalty.
Thanh Duc Danny Nguyen, 50, appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court last week where he pleaded guilty to two charges – aggravated assault and disorderly behaviour in a public passenger vehicle – over the horrifying incident which took place in Salisbury East in August last year.
Despite prosecutors pointing out Nguyen’s disturbing criminal history and long stretches spent in jail, the magistrate discharged him without further penalty due to the six months and seven days he had already spent in custody, ABC News reported.
Nguyen was ordered to pay $150 in court costs and a $1,144 victims of crime levy.
The career criminal, who was shirtless and wearing blue rubber gloves, assaulted the one-year-old child in front of his mother on the 502 bus pretended to breastfeed the infant, a court previously heard.
“[The baby’s other] witnessed the applicant reach into the pram, un-clip the child and remove the child from the pram and held the child towards his own chest,” prosecutors said.
“She said she leant over and attempted to grab [the child] from the accused, however he then tightened his grip … she then grabbed [the child].”
The woman told the bus driver who then called police. The child was uninjured.
Header image: Adelaide’s 502 bus (Flickr, Phillip Mallis, CC-2.0, cropped).
