Daniel Lea pleads guilty at Bendigo County Court to aggravated burglary, robbery after Kyabram machete home invasion

A meth-fuelled standover man has been busted walking into a Kyabram man’s house with a machete and extorting $20k in cash or else he’d get “a shotgun in the guts”.

Daniel Lea pleaded guilty to robbing a man and his wife during a machete home invasion.

A standover man has been busted walking into a Kyabram man’s house with a machete and extorting him for $20,000 in cash from the sale of a pricey horse, before taking off in his car.

Echuca man Daniel Lea, 37, pleaded guilty at Bendigo County Court on Monday to aggravated burglary and robbery after a machete home invasion where he terrified a man and his wife, demanding they pay him before stealing his ute and crashing it.

On August 27, 2022 Lea banged on the door of an Underwood Grove house in Kyabram with a “two-foot-long” machete.

When the owner opened the door, Lea pushed inside, demanding that the victim give him $20,000 or he would get “a shotgun in the guts.”

Lea knew the victim from living in Kyabram, and knew he had just sold a horse for about $20,000.

Lea threatened a man and a woman with a machete in their Kyabram home.

The victim told Lea the money was at his father’s place, trying to negotiate with Lea as the standover man smoked a cigarette in the victim’s living room and drank a can of beer.

Lea made the victim hand over his keys, saying he would take the car until he paid him the money.

While holding the machete to the victim, Lea forced him to delete all the CCTV footage of the incident.

The victim told police he was terrified he or his wife would get chopped by the machete.

Lea was also charged with extortion and making a threat to kill, but these were withdrawn on his plea deal.

About midnight on September 1, 2022 crashed the stolen ute on Forest St, Kyabram.

Lea took off in the victim’s ute after robbing him at knifepoint.

When police arrived they discovered Lea had changed the plates on the ute and found a machete in the cabin similar to the one used in the robbery.

Judge Pardeep Singh Tiwana said there was no evidence that Lea had shown any remorse for his actions, getting back onto meth immediately after being released from custody just a few months before the Kyabram robbery.

Lea had just been released from prison after he fired a rifle into the house of a man in Stanhope who was accused of raping a teenage girl.

Lea shot a .22 rifle into an accused rapist’s Stanhope home.

Lea had been jailed for three years after he shot a .22 rifle through the door of the accused rapist’s home as a mob of 20-30 people gathered to threaten attacks of revenge on the man on the night of April 19, 2019.

Lea’s defence barrister said the accused suffered from an acquired brain inquiry, and had battled with homelessness, unemployment and an inability to fit into society after a childhood of neglect and abuse.

The court heard Lea had been abusing drugs and alcohol since he was young in Swan Hill.

Lea never went back to school after the age of 12, never completing year 7.

“This man from a very early age was extraordinarily disrupted, deprived, disadvantaged,” his lawyer said.

Lea had spent 473 days remanded in custody before he pleaded guilty.

He will be sentenced at a later date at Melbourne County Court.