Coronavirus: Canberra crim Sharon Ann Stott wants bail amid jail virus fear
A woman notorious for using hired muscle to “get what she wants” in Canberra’s underworld, wants to be released from jail because of coronavirus.
Canberra Star
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A woman who used bikie thugs as her hired muscle in a violent home invasion wants to be released from Canberra’s overcrowded prison because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sharon Ann Stott, 59, appeared briefly in the ACT Supreme Court by video link from the Alexander Maconochie Centre on Thursday, where barrister Steven Whybrow said the risk of the virus spreading inside prison was “something that’s going to increasingly be raised”.
Stott has previously been refused bail, and is required to show a “change in circumstances” which Mr Whybrow said was a combination of the virus pandemic and a proposal that she be on conditions amounting to house arrest at a property in Kambah.
Stott is due to face trial in May on allegations she and former Satudarah Canberra chapter president David Evans forcibly confined an alleged victim. She faces charges, which she denies, of forcible confinement, inflicting harm and making a demand with menace.
Mr Whybrow also wants Stott to be able to report to Woden police station “by way of a video or Facetime call to police”.
Crown prosecutor Anthony Williamson said Stott’s lawyer had only on Thursday flagged she would be relying on the pandemic as a reason for her to be granted bail and he should be given until Monday to make inquiries with prison officials about how an outbreak would be managed at the jail.
Mr Williamson said he had been told ACT police had already been approached about alleged criminals reporting to police by video call instead of in person, and could not accommodate the proposal.
ACT authorities on Thursday afternoon confirmed a fourth case of the virus.
Unlike other states, the courts are continuing to operate a full schedule of hearings and jury trials, with jurors sitting metres apart from each other in the public gallery of court rooms and deliberating in large meeting rooms instead of cramped deliberation rooms.
Justice Michael Elkaim told the court on Thursday a bail application based on “speculation” that a trial might be delayed would not succeed.
“Any duration of delay is speculative and it’s changing all the time,” he said.
Stott was earlier this year sentenced to 19 months jail, to be suspended after time served, for her leading role in the home invasion of a house at Oaks Estate, during which one of her bikie standover men, former Satudarah Canberra chapter president, David Evans, broke the leg of their victim by smashing it with an electric guitar as another bikie, the gang’s current Canberra president, Dean Reid, held a knife to the victim’s throat.
She was refused bail after Crown Prosecutor Keegan Lee argued her history showed she
“has a propensity to use others to either enforce debts or demands that she makes”.
“When she wants something, she is willing and she has the associates … to get what she wants,” Mr Lee said.
Her bail application returns to court on Monday.