Adam Joseph Hellmann, Benjamin Troy Parkes sentenced for South Coast robbery

Two men terrorised a mechanic in broad daylight stealing a 2006 gold Holden Calais he bought off Facebook Marketplace, threatening to kill him if he went to the cops.

A deal over a 2006 gold Holden Calais went terribly wrong for an unsuspecting victim, who purchased the vehicle legally off Facebook marketplace in June 2020 to do it up and sell it on.

The victim, a 32-year-old mechanic, had negotiated a deal with Adam Hellmann’s ex-girlfriend to purchased the vehicle she had advertised for $6000. He offered her $3300, saying the car had mechanical issues and needed work on the interior.

The ex-girlfriend accepted the offer, and met the victim at Service NSW Nowra to exchange registration details.

There is no suggestion the ex-girlfriend was involved in the crime, and she has not been charged over the incident.

After spending time and money doing up the vehicle over the next two months, the victim’s plans to sell it on were thwarted when Hellmann, 24, and his friend, Benjamin Parkes, 43, showed up.

Adam Joseph Hellmann has been sentenced for a terrifying robbery on the South Coast. Picture: Facebook

Despite Hellmann being on parole at the time, the two accomplices went to the victim’s Shoalhaven home on August 11, threatened him with a crow bar and demanded the car.

“You ripped off a single mother,” Hellmann said.

The victim replied, “I didn’t rip off anyone. I got what I paid for.”

Parkes then pulled a crow bar from up his high-vis jumper sleeve, and told the victim: “I’ll break your legs, your arm and your jaw.”

Fearing for his life, the victim gave the keys and vehicle registration papers to Hellmann who left the scene, but not before Parkes had some parting words to share.

“If I see the boys in blue come after us or go to (Adam’s ex girlfriend’s) house, we’ll come back and we’ll kill you all,” Parkes, a former bikie, told the victim.

The mechanic phoned triple-0 to report the robbery, and the two men were arrested a few days later on August 14.

When police located the car, it had been damaged and parts were removed. Officers also found documents showing the vehicle had been put into Parkes ownership.

In custody since their arrest, Helmann and Parkes both entered a plea of guilty each to one count of robbery in company and were sentenced in Nowra District Court on Tuesday.

Appearing in prison greens via AVL from Bathurst Correctional Centre, both men were silent as Judge Ian McClintock told them they would spend at least another 14 months in jail.

Judge McClintock said both offenders had shown “a degree of remorse”, and he accepted it to be sincere.

“I probably scared the living shit out of him and I probably should have gone about dealing with the debt in another way,” Parkes said in a written report submitted to the court.

In sentencing, Judge McClintock described the crime as “very serious”.

“The offence must have been a terrifying encounter,” he said.

They were sentenced to three years and six months jail, with a non-parole period of two years and four months backdated to their arrest in August last year.

As for the car, it was taken to a wrecker and used for scrap metal, leaving the victim more than $5000 out of pocket.