Teen terrorises southeast during ‘brutal’ crime spree
A teen brute who invaded homes and carjacked, robbed, assaulted and terrorised his way across Melbourne’s east and southeast during a brazen crime spree will be out of prison in less than three years.
South East
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A teen brute who home invaded, carjacked, robbed, assaulted and terrorised his way across Melbourne’s southeast will be out of prison in less than three years.
The man was sentenced in the County Court last month to a minimum of four and a half years after earlier pleading guilty to a swathe of aggravated burglary and armed robbery charges.
The man was only 17 when began his near two-month crime rampage on August 4, 2016.
The 20-year-old, who can not be named as his proceedings started in a Children’s Court, and an unknown accomplice stormed a Clayton South home armed with a stick and a knife.
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The pair demanded their victims hand over keys to a Mercedes Benz parked outside the home.
One victim was tied up and had his face covered while a second victim was threatened with the knife.
The man and the other suspected fled in the stolen Mercedes.
The young thug was it again the next day when he robbed a total of $3500 from a Dandenong South Woolworths, a Mulgrave bottle shop and a Keysborough Foodworks in a 40-minute period.
The man brandished a machete while his “short and stocky” accomplice wielded a knife.
On September 6, the man and his accomplice used a knife to steal an Audi A6 from a man at his Clayton home.
Later that day the pair used knives to manhandle the manager of Hampton Park Aldi, stealing $3500.
Twenty minutes later the crooks robbed an Aldi store in Lyndhurst, making off with $1300.
They used the stolen A6 as a getaway car in both crimes but stacked the vehicle in Heatherton three days later.
On September 26, the pair used a Toyota Corolla — stolen at scissor-point from a woman just days earlier — for a series of robberies which netted $13,400.
The man and his criminal pal used a machete and a meat cleaver to knock over a Dingley Woolworths, Cheltenham IGA and Oakleigh East IGA.
Police spotted the man in the stolen Corolla in Notting Hill on September 28 but when they tried to arrest him he sped off along the Princess Highway at speeds of up to 180km/h.
He sped through a red light in Springvale at more than 100km/h.
The tearaway thug eventually dumped the vehicle but police chased him on foot and he was arrested in Dandenong.
Judge Paul Higham said some of the man’s crimes were “serious examples of serious offending”.
“You entered someone’s home in the early hours of the morning … for those persons to be woken up in the middle of the night, and to be confronted by armed and masked intruders, must have been terrifying,” he said.
“The sanctity and safety of their home was violated in a most brutal fashion by you.
“Supermarkets and local IGAs are essentially public places where families go to shop, parents go with their children as part of their everyday routine.
“To be confronted by masked youths brandishing machetes when carrying out your everyday routine offends the public’s sense of security and wellbeing.
“It makes the public think that their world is not safe.
“What is clear from those victim impact statements ... was that the impact of your offending has had a continuing and lasting impact upon some of your victims.”
Judge Higham took into account the man’s youth, his early guilty plea and his good behaviour while in custody when sentencing.
The man was sentenced to seven years and seven months jail, with a non-parole period of four years and six months.
He had spent 890 days in custody at the time of sentencing.