Charles Pawney, Daniel Willats and Scott Luland-Moore sentenced for violent attack
When $30,000 in drugs went missing near Hervey Bay, an innocent apprentice barber and his housemate were bashed in a bloody home invasion, before being forced into a car and driven down an isolated dirt road. Warning: distressing content.
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On a dirt road at Booral on the Fraser Coast, two men, the victims of a brutal home invasion, stood bleeding.
Luke Power and Jordan Kettlewell had been attacked in the Urangan home where they both lived, then forced into a blue Nissan Maxima and driven to that dirt road 23km from Hervey Bay, where one of their attackers threatened to cut off their fingers.
The nightmare had started with the eviction of their housemate and $30,000 worth of missing drugs, court documents have revealed.
On July 12, 2019, Charles Alfred Pawney was kicked out of the home he shared with the two men after he punched holes in the walls.
Bags containing all of his belongings were placed outside the gate of the property.
On July 13, Mr Power received a phone call from his mother, Donna Nicholls, who said Pawney had told her there was $30,000 worth of drugs left in his belongings outside the front gate, the documents state.
Mr Power said he highly doubted that Pawney would have that amount of drugs in the bag.
He then went to work and missed 10 phone calls from Pawney.
The next day about 8.30pm, Mr Power was laying in his lounge room watching television.
Mr Kettlewell was in bed trying to go to sleep.
Mr Power heard a noise coming from the front of the property, looked out the front window and saw the electronic gate opening.
He then saw three men at the sliding glass door entering the lounge room - one of them was Pawney, another was Daniel John Leon Willats, who rushed at Mr Power in a tackling motion.
Mr Power raised his arms then started swinging punches to defend himself.
Pawney then joined in the attack, the documents read.
Pawney and Willats threw multiple punches and kicks at Mr Power, who could hear that Mr Kettlewell was also being attacked.
During the assault, a 50cm television was smashed into the back of Mr Power’s head.
The third attacker, former ice addict Scott Martin Luland-Moore, then struck Mr Kettlewell with a wrench.
The attack lasted less than four minutes when Mr Kettlewell and Mr Power were pushed outside and into the vehicle.
Mr Power tried to fight against them, but was overpowered, the documents read.
Luland-Moore then drove the men to a dirt road at Booral where they were again assaulted and questioned over the missing drugs.
Pawney told them: “If you don’t come up with the money or my weed you are going to die”.
Mr Power was punched in the face, Mr Kettlewell in the shoulder.
Pawney then threatened Mr Power, telling him he would “chop off one of your fingers and send it to your mum”.
The group got back in the car and drove a further 2km down the dirt road until they reached a dead end.
Pawney told the men he was sick of playing games and was going to start chopping fingers off.
When the car stopped, the two men were pulled out and beaten again for 10-15 minutes.
Mr Power was in the foetal position, the documents read and “felt pain all over”.
A phone was then used to call his mother, with Mr Power telling her: “Mum it’s Luke, if you have Charlie’s stuff can you please just give it to him”.
His mother said words to the effect of, “Luke, where are you? Why are you with Charlie?”
Pawney took the phone, the court documents read, and told her they needed to come up with $30,000 to pay for the weed.
He then ended the call.
Further threats were made to cut off the men’s fingers, to tie them to a tree for the night, or break their knees.
One of the offenders said, “let’s just kill them”.
The two men were then placed back into the car, where Mr Kettlewell noticed the child locks had been disengaged.
Mr Kettlewell tapped Mr Power on the leg to show him the doors could be opened, the court documents read.
Mr Power said to Mr Kettlewell, “we need to get the f**k out of here”.
Mr Kettlewell opened the door and both ran to a nearby barbed wire fence.
Mr Kettlewell jumped the fence and was chased by one of the offenders, who said “do you think you can get away from me?”
Mr Power tried to climb the fence but was grabbed, thrown to the ground and hit in the head.
He was punched and kicked and again went into the foetal position
After the attack, he was pulled up so he was sitting on the grass.
He got to his feet and ran, followed by the offenders, but he found a dark place to hide.
After three minutes he heard them start the Maxima and drive away.
Meanwhile, Mr Kettlewell had made it to Booral Rd and knocked on doors until someone answered and called the police.
After escaping, Mr Power flagged down a passing police car.
From there, both men were taken to hospital.
Mr Power had a 10cm-long laceration to his head that required eight to 10 staples, along with two black eyes and other injuries.
Mr Kettlewell had a 2.5cm laceration to the chin where he had been struck by the wrench.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement submitted to the court, Ms Nicholls told of how that night had impacted on her son.
“This night was a mother’s worst nightmare,” she wrote. “So many thoughts running through my head.”
“I just prayed that my son and his friend were still alive.
“Seeing my son on the highway in an ambulance covered in blood and the only part I could see were his eyes and the terrified look in them.”
Ms Nicholls said she knew her son was angry and in pain that night.
She described finding it hard to sleep and said she remained scared of Pawney.
Cleaning the house after the attack was “so hard”, Ms Nicholls said, describing the holes in the walls, the blood on the walls and furniture, and imagining what the two men went through.
“I still find it hard to go to this house. Every time I do it brings back all those memories,” she wrote.
She said Mr Power had been an apprentice barber but gave it up due to the trauma as he couldn’t cope with people.
“I find that the spirit of my son died that night; he is no longer the same young man he used to be,” she wrote.
“They say time heals everything and that it may, but I’ll never forget that night.
“It’s etched in my brain like (a) nightmare from hell – this is something no parent should ever have to go through.”
When Pawney faced Hervey Bay District Court in 2021, he pleaded guilty to burglary, four counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, wilful damage, stealing, kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping and torture.
He was sentenced to six years in prison and released on parole later that year.
Willats pleaded guilty to two counts of threatening violence, assaults occasioning bodily harm, kidnapping, kidnapping for ransom and burglary in the night-time with violence in company.
He was given a head sentence of four years jail, suspended after serving 12 months, for an operational period of four years.
Luland-Moore, 26, pleaded guilty to two counts of deprivation of liberty, entering a home with intent to commit an indictable offence, assault occasioning bodily harm and two counts of threatening violence.
He was given a head sentence of four years in prison and immediate parole, with the time he had spent in custody declared as time served.
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