Coffs Harbour: Man sentenced after home invasion

The terrified woman heard “heavy thudding” and later officers followed footprints and found a man and another person in bushland nearby. Here is what happened in court.

A 67-year-old woman who lived alone in her Coffs Harbour home hid in her bedroom after she heard “heavy thudding”, and spotted two intruders in her dining room at 5am.

“One can only imagine she would have been terrified,” magistrate Ian Rodgers told the Coffs Harbour Local Court on Friday, February 11.

Hayden Hamilton Hosking-Carriage, 24, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment - to be served by way of an intensive correction order, and 100 hours of community service - for aggravated break and enter.

On a charge of goods in custody, he was convicted with no further penalty.

The court was told that on the morning of May 20, 2021, the victim “heard the sound of heavy thudding” in her Boambee East home.

She saw two people standing in her dining room, and shut herself away by closing the bedroom door, according to the police facts.

It was alleged Hosking-Carriage and another male had gained entry to the residence through a closed kitchen window.

Responding police found a television set which had been left on the ground near a side-gate to the property, the court heard.

Officers followed footprints and found the accused and another person in bushland, with computer equipment also allegedly taken from the home nearby.

Hosking Carriage’s lawyer told the court it was an “unsophisticated” crime and that his client had a “heavy and long standing drug addiction” which had developed after he lost his father at age 15.

But the Crown contested that there had been some degree of planning in the incident, and that the victim had “suffered significant emotional harm”.