Balmain Woolworths: Man jailed over stabbing 16yo boy
A steroid-using personal trainer who stabbed a teen boy in the car park of a Balmain supermarket has been jailed for seven years for the “hideous and unprovoked” attack.
Police & Courts
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A district court judge blasted Jeremy Allen’s attack on a teenage boy in an inner-Sydney Woolworths carpark as “unprovoked” and sent him to jail.
A steroid-using personal trainer who stabbed a teen boy in the car park of a Balmain supermarket has been jailed for seven years for the “hideous and unprovoked” attack.
Jeremy Allen, 31, appeared in Downing Centre District Court on Monday and was supported in the public gallery by his girlfriend Cassandra Ross, 25, after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent over the incident in July 2018.
The court was told Allen asked the 16-year-old boy – who was a promising cricket player – for a lighter when he stabbed him in the hands and stomach outside the Woolworths store in Balmain before leaving the car park with Ross.
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Allen hung his head as the boy’s father read out a victim impact statement on his behalf to the court, saying his son had difficult doing everyday tasks like carrying shopping bags because of the severe and ongoing injuries to his hands.
“Had I not put my hand out to stop that knife it would have penetrated my liver – it was pure luck I was not killed that knight,” the boy said.
“This event will live with me forever. I will be carrying both physical and emotional scars for the rest of my life – I don’t think anyone should have to endure the pain I went through.
“It is difficult for me to get to sleep.”
Allen had claimed Ross had sent him a Facebook message saying a group of men had threatened to stab her on the night of the attack, but Judge Mark Williams SC found the stabbing was a “completely unprovoked act of violence”.
The court was told after the incident Allen had previously failed to mention his previous steroid use and a fight he had with Ross days before the stabbing. He had also been drinking heavily in the lead up to the attack and had mental health issues.
Allen had also slept with a knife under his pillow since he was 12 and an ex-girlfriend said he had a fascination with knives, the court heard.
In sentencing, Judge Williams found the severity of the attack was exacerbated because Allen grabbed the boy with his arms and did an underarm stabbing motion, meaning the victim could not escape before his 14-year-old brother called police.
“The victim impact statement read by the father … clearly indicates the physical and emotional scars that he will be carrying – as he said – for the rest of his life following what he describes as a hideous and unprovoked attack,” the judge said.
“The offending involved a completely unprovoked act of violence upon a 16-year-old boy stabbed in the abdomen with a folding knife – it was brazen offending.”
Allen, who has been behind bars on remand for almost two years, was sentenced to seven years and three months in jail with a non-parole period of four years and three months.
He will be first eligible for parole in October 2022 with time already served.
Ross, who burst into tears outside the courtroom after Allen was sentenced, was charged with concealing a serious indictable offence of another person over the incident.
However, court records show on appeal her conviction was quashed and a community corrections order was set aside.