St Kilda home invasion: Gatwick Hotel menace Daniel Stewart jailed for violent aggravated burglary

A St Kilda boarding house hoodlum who broke into a nearby home during a violent armed robbery barked orders at his victim as his accomplice bashed him with a broken table leg.

Former residents of the notorious Gatwick Hotel have been jailed for a home invasion.

A Gatwick Hotel druggie who took part in a St Kilda home invasion where a man was bludgeoned with a broken table leg has been sentenced to at least two years and four months in prison.

Daniel Stewart, 49, was sentenced in the County Court last month after pleading guilty to intentionally causing injury, aggravated burglary and theft.

Stewart and his co-offender Bradley “Mickey Blue Eyes” Karoll were living at the notorious Gatwick Hotel when they entered their 69-year-old victim’s Inkerman St home on May 26, 2017.

The pair gained access to the house with the help of a mutual friend of the victim, who they knew from St Kilda’s “drug milieu”.

Karoll launched a vicious assault on the victim, using a broken table leg to bludgeon his victim in the face, head, ribs, chest, arms and legs.

He told the victim “we’re here to take your place” and “this is our place now”.

Karoll also said they would not leave until they got the house keys.

Stewart told the victim to “sit there, c***” while the assault took place.

He wiped the blood off the table leg.

The victim managed to run to St Kilda police station, where he told officers he thought he was going to die.

Judge Julie Condon said Stewart’s role in the home invasion had a “profound impact on the victim”.

“(The victim impact statement) indicates that he has been diagnosed by medical professionals with forms of post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said.

“He genuinely struggles to cope every day and rarely experiences a good day.

“He struggles to sleep because he sees images and flashbacks from the incident.”

Judge Condon accepted Stewart, who has a history of drug use and a nonviolent criminal record, performed the role of “aider and abettor”.

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“I find your pleas of guilty consistent with an acceptance of responsibility for your offending and with a desire to facilitate the administration of justice,” she said.

Stewart was sentenced to three years and ten months with a minimum of two years and four months.

He had spent 642 days in custody at the time of sentencing.

Karoll was sentenced in March 2018 to four years and seven months with a minimum of three years.

The Gatwick Hotel closed in 2017 after decades of crime and controversy, and is now a multimillion-dollar apartment complex after featuring on the 2018 series of The Block.

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