Thug Edwin Okot pleads guilty to Wantirna South home invasion which left young parents terrified
A drug-addled menace who stormed a Wantirna South house with a gang of armed thugs is hoping his “mental impairment’ will spare him a jail sentence while his victims — a couple and their young children — now feel unsafe and anxious in their own home.
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A drug-addled menace who stormed a Wantirna South home with a gang of armed thugs has begged his victims for forgiveness.
Edwin Okot, 20, pleaded guilty in the County Court on Monday to aggravated home invasion and theft.
The court heard Okot and his cronies arrived in a stolen Volkswagen SUV and chose their target after “casing” the quiet residential street for more than 10 minutes.
Okot, armed with a wooden stick, and four others armed with sticks and metal poles, smashed through their victims’ front door just after 5am on April 2 this year.
The thugs ransacked the house as their victims and two young children slept upstairs.
The victims were woken by a “loud bang” but went back to sleep after the dad saw nothing outside nor on his CCTV app.
A second “bang” woke the dad and he said to his wife “we’re being robbed”.
In the meantime, Okot and his thug mates had stolen a Gucci wallet, a handbag, car keys and several bank cards and IDs.
Okot jumped into the dad’s $100,000 Mercedes which was driven away by another offender.
The dad tracked his Mercedes via an app and called police.
He gave the car’s location to police who “covertly” tracked the vehicle through Upper Beaconsfield.
The driver of the stolen car “inexplicably accelerated” through a red light and collided with a 25 tonne crane truck just before 6am.
The Mercedes was destroyed during the smash.
Okot, who was on two sets of bail at the time, was arrested after attempting to flee the scene on foot.
He spent two days in hospital before he was remanded.
The mum, in her victim impact statement, said the home invasion has left her “scared and anxious”.
“Over time, the number of panic attacks increased and started to include most things in my life,” she said.
“The stress of being in the house, we were in the middle of COVID lockdowns, so I felt stressed being at home and the constant reminders there were strangers in our home, touching our belongings, our personal items …
“I should be able to feel comfortable and safe to sleep in my home with my kids.”
The dad, in his victim impact statement, said he feels like a “failure” for not being able to protect his family.
“I get so angry with myself for not doing more to ensure their safety and being ignorant for thinking we live in the best and safest country in the world,” he said.
“I feel at anytime, day or night that someone is going to come banging down my door and storm into my house.”
The victims said they spent a lot of money beefing up home security with extra cameras, alarms, shutters and a guard dog.
The court heard Okot, who appeared via videolink from Ravenhall, wanted to fast track his matter before turning 21 next month.
Okot, via his lawyer, claimed he regretted the offending which occurred after he took a cocktail of Xanax, MDMA, cannabis and alcohol.
Okot claimed he needed money after learning his partner was pregnant so he turned to drugs and fell in with the “wrong crowd”.
He said the night of the “extraordinarily severe” offending he had only asked for a “ride home” but “drugs were taken” and he “woke up in hospital”.
Okot must be sentenced to an adult jail term unless he can show “special reason” and “exceptional circumstances”, the court heard.
It was submitted Okot has an “impaired mental functioning” and, if accepted by the court, should serve youth detention instead of adult jail.
Okot, from Pakenham, also claimed he was “teased at school” because of his “deformed skull”.
The menace wrote a letter to his victims apologising for his “stupid behaviour”.
Okot wrote he “prays the victims could live safe in their own home” and hopes they “could forgive him in time”.
Judge Sarah Dawes will sentence Okot at a later date.
Okot is facing several outstanding charges which will be finalised after he is sentenced by Judge Dawes.
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