Crimes that shocked the Southern Highlands in 2021 | List

Police and the courts have been busy across the Southern Highlands in the last 12 months. These are some of the crimes that shocked the region in 2021.

The Southern Highlands is known for its lush gardens and tranquil atmosphere, but the area’s hidden underbelly was bustling with everything from revenge porn to a bungled armed robbery in 2021.

While much of this year was spent in quiet lockdown solitude, Moss Vale Court was busy processing a plethora of local offenders – from badly behaved cops to child sex offenders and everything in between.

Statistics from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research reveal the number of theft offences and break and enter offences dropped noticeably over the past two years in the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven. However, violent crime rose 3.7 per cent over the past five years.

The spike in violence illustrated in some of the most shocking court cases in 2021, including the “monster” police officer who broke his partner’s nose and the botched armed robbery in Mittagong.

These are some of the crimes that shocked the Southern Highlands in 2021.

Man secretly sexually assaulted teen

A “naive” young man took a young girl to two secret bushland areas in the Southern Highlands where he indecently assaulted her numerous times.

Andrew Edmund Lee, 27, avoided spending time behind bars after he admitted to seven counts of indecently assaulting a minor and two charges of inciting a minor to commit an act of indecency.

The Bundanoon resident first met up with the victim when he was 18 and she was 13. For months, they would meet in secret locations around Mittagong, which they dubbed ‘The Palace’ and ‘The Dungeon’.

Lee admitted to groping the 13-year-old victim’s breasts on five occasions at ‘The Dungeon’, a nature strip in Mittagong.

In early 2013, the facts show Lee invited the teen to his home, where the two kissed and he touched her body. However the victim left soon after Lee tried to touch her vagina. A year later, he again indecently assaulted the teen when he unzipped his pants and revealed his penis.

When he talked to police in 2020, Lee admitted he knew he was pushing the boundaries with the victim.

“There was a case of me pushing the limit, um, knowing it was wrong, not quite knowing what I was doing either. But like I knew enough to know it was wrong,” he told them.

Magistrate Mark Douglass said Lee was “naive and immature” and said the ordeal “must have been quite stressful” for him.

He sentenced Lee to a three-year community corrections order and 350 hours of community service. He also imposed a five-year no-contact apprehended violence order to protect the victim.

Read the full story here.

Man blackmailed his ex with revenge porn

A young man threatened to distribute intimate pictures of his ex on social media in order to blackmail her into rekindling the relationship.

Luke Gosper, 22, pleaded guilty to threatening to distribute an intimate image without consent and using his mobile to harass his ex-girlfriend on the night of February 20.

Gosper texted his ex a few days after she broke up with him for cheating on her and asked for a second chance. When she asked him to stop texting her, he became aggressive and threatened to spread compromising photos of her on Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram.

“Do you want to f**k with my feeling(s) I’m going to f**k with your life forever,” his texts read.

“Your photos are getting posted to Facebook as we speak.”

After threatening to put a knife in his own chest, Gosper turned his anger to his ex. The victim received a text instructing her to look at Instagram, where she saw an intimate photo she had shared with Gosper during their relationship.

When she refused to comply with his demand to reinstate their relationship status on Facebook, he posted a picture of her genitals on Snapchat. His text after the revenge porn read simply “lol”.

The court heard he sent the victim over a hundred texts in two days, many of which were abusive.

Gosper was sentenced to a year-long community corrections order and fined $500.

Read the full story here.

‘Monster’ top cop broke woman’s nose

A senior police officer was described as a “monster” after he assaulted a woman numerous times and left her in need of surgery.

James William Swan, 42, denied all wrongdoing after being charged with choking a woman and assaulting her another three times between Christmas Day in 2018 to June 2019.

During one of the “intoxicated” assaults, Swan broke the woman’s nose so badly she had to be hospitalised and required surgery to repair the damage.

The court heard Swan tried to blame his violent behaviour on the victim.

“He said it was my fault he became a monster,” the victim said in a statement tendered to the court.

“The one person who was supposed to keep the community safe was the person who made my life hell.”

Magistrate Mark Douglass deemed Swan a “a man of good character” who served the community, despite the offender not showing any remorse or regret for his actions.

He sentenced the top cop to a two year community corrections order.

Read the full story here.

Man threatened to kill two women after threesome refusal

A man lost his temper when two women refused to engage in a threesome with him, telling them he would kill them both as well as himself.

Jack Antony Bower, 29, pleaded guilty to common assault and intimidation after he repeatedly threatened to harm two women over two days.

The Bundanoon resident was at a home with two women on the night of September 5 last year when he asked them for a threesome.

When one of the women refused, he yelled in frustration and said he would kill both women.

“I’ll slit ya f***ing throats,” he said.

Despite sleeping on it, Bower woke up still furious the next morning and told one of the women to leave the house. She was scared to get into the car due to Bower’s repeated threats of violence.

“Get the f*** in the car, I’m going to kill all three of us,” he told both women.

One of the women saw Bower get into a physical fight with the other woman before he screamed at them both to leave and pushed them out of the door.

He was sentenced to an intensive corrections order of five months and one week and another intensive corrections order of eight months and one week.

Read the full story here.

Rugby league player showed photos of sex with ex

A rugby player for the local Southern Highlands Storm admitted to a bizarre crime spree which ranged from revenge porn to brawling.

William James Murchie, 27, pleaded guilty to destruction of property, intentionally distributing an intimate image, and a “very serious” charge of affray.

The Mittagong man began his run of bad behaviour on September 13 last year when he sent his ex (and her new partner) intimate photos he had taken during their time together. Murchie texted the victim six times with photos of the pair having sex, which he had also shown to several people at the pub the night before.

The victim’s naked body, face, and tattoo are all easily identifiable in the photos, which Murchie showed off as revenge for the break up.

“I used to w*** to these but now she’s dead to me,” he told the pub-goers.

“This is what she deserves.”

He continued his crime spree on New Year’s Eve last year by climbing and destroying the Wingecarribee Shire Council Christmas tree in Corbett Plaza before midnight.

On January 10, Murchie launched an “unprovoked attack” on a victim outside a Bowral bar. He approached the victim and punched him a number of times in the back of the head, leaving the victim bruised, swollen and unconscious on the ground.

Witnesses said the victim wasn’t breathing for about ten seconds before he loudly gasped back to consciousness.

Murchie was sentenced to a seven-month intensive corrections order, an 18-month community corrections order, and fined him $750 to cover the Christmas tree costs.

Read the full story here.

Teen bashed girl in bar bathroom

After finding out a woman had allegedly slept with her boyfriend, a teenager extorted a protection fee from the woman and then bashed her bloody in the bathroom of a Bowral bar.

When Rihannon Sienkiewicz, 19, found out about the alleged tryst at a Year 12 formal in November 2020, she messaged the girl involved and demanded $350 not to take physical revenge. The Colo Vale resident had a mutual friend collect the fee, but still found herself “worked up” about the situation.

It all came to a head when Sienkiewicz saw the woman a month later at a pub in Bowral, and asked to have a chat with her in the bathroom. The court documents reveal she said “I’m still not happy about what happened” before she punched the victim five times in the face.

The woman fell back and hit her head on the floor, where she felt her hair being pulled and more punches hitting her head. Sienkiewicz said the woman “deserved what she got” when a friend tried to help her up from where she lay dazed and bloody on the floor.

Sienkiewicz pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and demanding menaces intending to obtain gain. She was sentenced to a year-long community corrections order, 100 hours of community service, and ordered to repay the $350 to the victim.

Read the full story here.

Teacher drove drunk to school

Local teacher Jay Louise Fawcett admitted to mid-range drink driving on her way to work. Picture: Facebook

A public school teacher was caught driving drunk through a school zone at 8am in the morning on her way to work.

Jay Louise Fawcett, 49, admitted to mid-range drink driving through Mittagong on her way to teach at Mittagong Public School.

She was pulled over by police just after 8am on March 12 when police saw her make a turn without indicating in a school zone.

Police said Fawcett’s eyes were glassy and her speech was slurred when they stopped her for a random breath test. She admitted she’d been drinking wine the night before but couldn’t remember what time she’d had her last drink.

The teacher returned a blood alcohol result of 0.112 – more than twice the legal limit.

The court heard Fawcett has been was a hardworking woman who had “gone through a good deal of stress in recent times”.

She was disqualified from driving for three months, fined $660, and ordered to drive with an interlock alcohol detection device for a year.

Read the full story here.

Senior cop assaulted partner, called her 611 times

A senior constable narrowly avoided jail after assaulting his partner. Picture: Gaye Gerard

A senior police constable pushed his partner and used his full weight to pin her to the ground before threatening her with hundreds of calls and texts.

Joshua Shane Woods, 33, pleaded guilty to common assault, intimidation, and using a phone to harass his partner over the course of a year.

The senior constable stationed at Camden began harassing his partner on March 19, 2018 when the couple got into an argument about a soiled nappy. When the victim returned home from work, Woods grabbed the victim’s arms and used his leg to force her to the ground.

The move caused her to fall heavily to the ground and hit her head on the lounge. Woods then used his full weight to pin the victim to the ground and choked her. While she was struggling, he made a derogatory comment and spat in her face.

Over a two-week period, Wood’s phone records show he called the victim 611 times and sent her 66 texts.

“If I find out you’re cheating, I’ll shoot you both in the head,” he said in one of the calls overheard by the victim’s friend.

The victim said the constant barrage of texts and calls demanding to know where she was and who she was with had made her paranoid.

“I was confused as to how someone who had told me they loved me could treat me that way,” she said in a powerful statement tendered to the court.

Woods was sentenced to a year-long intensive corrections order which will expire on July 22 next year.

Read the full story.

Socialite and serial fraudster jailed after stealing from friend

Former Frensham girl Annabel Walker was jailed for consecutive fraud offences.

A ‘charming and sweet’ former private school girl from the Southern Highlands endured a stunning fall from grace which saw her steal thousands of dollars from friends and strangers.

Bowral socialite Annabel ‘Belle’ Walker, 33, admitted to 11 charges of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage or causing disadvantage by deception.

The usually glamorous Bowral resident orchestrated a dodgy rental scam when she offered an apartment for rent on Gumtree in November 2019. She took a deposit from an interested party but continually gave excuses as to why the renter could not move in.

After promising to repay the victim, Walker cut off all communication with the man.

Walker also admitted to using her friend’s credit card for a $4500 spending spree.

After befriending the woman, Walker used her credit card details to treat herself to over $1500 of luxury booze and used her own name, phone number, and email address to confirm the orders.

She also spent nearly $600 on bikinis and hundreds on getting her makeup and hair done.

When the victim cancelled her credit cards, Walker procured her new credit card details by offering to cook the victim’s family a homemade meal at their home.

Walker was sentenced to 14 months in jail with a non-parole period of seven months.

Read the full story here.

Bungling thieves botched armed robbery of Mittagong RSL

Stuart John Wells and Kristy Barbara Burke were jailed for robbing the Mittagong RSL.

The armed robbery of the Mittagong RSL was carried out by a recognisable local with socks on his hands – but it was nearly foiled by a flying plate of pasta.

Stuart John Wells, 27, committed the armed robbery of the local club in the middle of the lunch rush with local Kristy Barbara Burke, 40, as the getaway driver in a Kennards Hire ute rented in her own name.

On August 22 last year, Wells asked Burke to drive him to the RSL so he could enter through the back. He was wearing socks on his hands when he jumped the fence and entered the RSL from the terrace.

Video of the stick-up shows Wells running straight to the cashier in the pokies room and brandishing the gun, demanding money from the long-time RSL employee.

“Give me the f***ing money,” he repeatedly demanded.

The cashier placed the money on the counter but the CCTV shows Wells’s sock-covered hands made it hard for him to get a grip on the bundles of cash. He had not brought a bag.

The footage shows the cashier duck down to push the two panic buttons and then appear to collapse in fear. Meanwhile, Wells ran from the pokies room, leaving a breadcrumb trail of dropped cash in his wake.

A bystander attempted to stop the robbery by throwing a bowl of pasta at Wells, but narrowly missed his head. Wells dropped a hefty sum of cash and struggled to pick it up with his socked hands, eventually abandoning some of it to run out the front door.

Despite his slippery grip, Wells got away with $19,040 but only gave $100 to Burke for her role as a getaway driver.

Police were able to identify Wells quite quickly as a local after glimpsing his recognisable facial tattoo through his ill-fitting balaclava. They spotted the bungling robber in Moss Vale carrying the same duffel bag.

He hadn’t bothered to empty the bag, so police found the shortened .22 magnum calibre rifle seen in the surveillance footage, a bag of ammunition, and more than $1800 in cash (mostly in $50 notes).

Wells was sentenced to seven years and three months in jail with a non-parole period of four years and eight months. Meanwhile wheel woman Burke was sentenced to two years and five months with a non-parole period of one year and five months.

Read the full story here.

Honourable mention: Granny glad-wrapped husband’s head as he slept

90-year-year Judith Ethel Allan narrowly avoided jail after attempting to smother her husband.

One of the wildest stories to come out of Moss Vale Court this year arose when a 90-year-old grandmother wrapped her husband’s head in plastic while he was asleep.

Judith Ethel Allan, 90, admitted to choking her husband without consent by wrapping his head in Glad Wrap “to frighten him”.

At 7am on January 27, Allan returned home from a walk to find her husband still asleep in their bed. She took a 52cm long strip of Glad Wrap from the kitchen and wrapped it around her husband’s head before he woke up to his wife standing over him.

The victim didn’t have trouble breathing or lose consciousness, although he did move interstate after the incident.

Allan tried to tell police that she’d wrapped her husband in blankets and sheets to keep him warm, but eventually conceded she’d used the glad wrap.

The court heard Allan’s 50 year marriage was characterised by psychological abuse and coercive control from her husband.

Allan was sentenced to a community corrections order for two years.

Read the full story here.