Garda Connolly and a colleague went inside to investigate and found themselves staring down the barrel of a handgun. The gunman told them to leave the shop or he would "blow their heads off" and threatened to infect them with the HIV virus.

The gunman managed to escape but he was arrested soon after. He was 26-year-old Alex Harris, one of Dublin's most notorious and prolific armed robbers and burglars.

When Harris was being processed it emerged that he should never have been on the street at all. The crack cocaine addict had been on bail after carrying out two separate robberies in November 2005.

He was sent to Mountjoy and gardai thought he would have stayed there until his trial date.

Harris was an experienced criminal who had amassed 27 serious convictions and he knew how to use the system.

His solicitor went to the High Court and asked for his client to be bailed until he was due in court to face his first of three trials.

The High Court judge agreed and Harris was again a free man.

On 26 July 2006, Detective Garda Ian Brunton from Fitzgibbon Street station was on duty when he was informed about an attempted armed robbery that had taken place in Paddy Power bookmakers on the North Strand.

Two armed men had entered the premises and waved a shotgun at staff demanding cash but fled when the scared workers crouched under the counter.

Brunton took a description of the offenders and recognised the foiled robbery as being the modus operandi of Harris, who came from nearby Ballybough.

Brunton had known Harris since he was a uniformed officer and drove around Ballybough to his known haunts.

He spotted him within a half an hour.

The drug addict admitted carrying out the attempted robbery and was again processed and sent to jail but he was again given bail.

He had now committed four armed robberies while on bail and was a clear threat to the public.

On 23 November 2006, Harris and an accomplice walked into the Centra shop on Shantalla Road in Ballymun and threatened staff with a knife.

After escaping with a quantity of cash they were spotted by a garda patrol car and were ordered to pull over.

Harris and his friend refused to surrender and drove across Dublin at high speeds nearly hitting pedestrians on a number of occasions.

The getaway car reached the North Strand and then went out of control and crashed outside the Five Lamps Pub. The driver had driven through a red light on the wrong side of the road.

Luckily no innocent people were hurt following the crash and Harris was arrested by Detective Garda Shay Woods from Santry station.

Harris had received minor injuries after the crash and when a garda entered his cell to bring him to Beaumont Hospital Harris spat blood at the officer and told him he was HIV positive.

When Shay Woods brought him back to Santry Station following medical treatment Harris pulled a catheter out of his arm and sprayed the detective with blood while laughing and joking that he had HIV. He was sent to jail and this time there would be no bail. Meanwhile the two gardai had to wait months to discover if they were infected with the virus.

Alex Harris was given a 14year sentence last week for all of the five robberies along with other offences arising from them. Six years were suspended.

Gardai say that Harris is the perfect poster boy to illustrate how the bail system is being abused by criminals.

Offenders can point firearms at gardai, innocent workers and put the lives of pedestrians in danger yet they can go to the High Court and be freed on bail.

Harris will be a free man in less than five years but gardai say that for every Alex Harris there are 10 criminals just like him all too skilled at abusing the bail system.