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A man has been jailed for 22 years after he tied up and assaulted a Melbourne mother before binding her children’s hands, covering their eyes and kidnapping them in a car boot.
Jiangang Ji had waited for their father to leave for work before breaking into the Blackburn North house while armed with a knife to take the children.
Jiangang Ji.Credit: Facebook
They were safely returned to their parents after a nearly 12-hour ordeal on August 23, 2021, but are still affected by the terrifying experience that sparked a Melbourne-wide search.
Ji was on Wednesday ordered to serve at least 15 years of the sentence.
The children were forced to watch as Ji, now 38, bound and assaulted their mother. He asked her for money as she begged him not to hurt her children.
He also threatened her with a knife, leaving a laceration to her stomach more than 10 centimetres long.
The Mitcham home where the children were found.Credit: Simone Fox Koob
Through a translation app, he demanded she ask her husband for $1 million to ensure her children would be safe, and also sent a ransom request directly to the husband.
Ji then restrained the children with tape and covered their eyes, carrying them one by one to the boot of their mother’s car.
The mother waited until she believed Ji had left and, while still bound and gagged, was able to run into her street and stop passing drivers who called police.
Ji, who arrived in Australia on a tourist visa in late 2017, had previously worked for the woman’s husband as a plasterer in his building business.
Police at the Blackburn North home where the assault occurred in August 2021. The family has since relocated.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Police were able to track Ji to a home in Mitcham and return the children to their parents.
A County Court jury found Ji guilty of assaulting the mother, and he pleaded guilty to other charges including kidnapping, aggravated burglary, false imprisonment and theft.
When interviewed by officers, Ji admitted taking the children, claiming he had been treated poorly by their father and admitting he committed the offences as “revenge”.
Judge Gabrielle Cannon said his crimes were planned, calculated and committed when the woman and children were particularly vulnerable in their own home.
A court sketch of Jiangang Ji at an earlier court appearance.Credit: Mollie McPherson
She said the children were very young and obviously distressed, yet Ji had still felt the need to bind them and tape their eyes before driving them unrestrained in the car.
Although Ji told police they were well cared for, she said he left them alone for four hours locked in a room.
The family has since sold their car and moved house to help the children forget the trauma, but the father said he still has to be home before dark or his family does not feel safe.
Cannon said Ji told medical experts he was drinking heavily at the time and suffered a workplace injury while also affected by COVID-19 lockdowns, forcing him to rely on limited savings to support himself.
Police at the Mitcham property where two children were found.Credit: Eddie Jim
She found he was suffering from a moderate to severe depressive disorder which contributed to his ability to make appropriate and rational judgments and raised significant concerns about the lack of treatment he had received in prison.
Ji expects to be deported to China, where he has a wife and two children, after serving his sentence.
He has already spent more than two years in custody.
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