By Adam Cooper
Career criminal Christopher "Badness" Binse, who as a teenager held in Pentridge, looked up to hardened crooks, now wants to deter young people from making the mistakes he did, a court has heard.
Binse, 48, has spent most of his adult life in prison and currently cannot be released until 2026 at the earliest, but returned to the Supreme Court on Monday for a pre-sentence hearing over seven armed robberies he pulled across Melbourne between 1988 and 1991.
The hold-ups would have remained unsolved, the court heard, had Binse not contacted police from jail in 2015 to confess to the crimes - which netted him about $390,000 - so he could "square the ledger".
Binse served time in Pentridge from when he was 17, aspiring to be like the criminals he admired before he was let out as an angry and resentful young man, having "learned a lot of very bad things", defence counsel Michael FitzGerald told the court.
Armed robber Christopher Binse, wants others to stick to the straight and narrow.Credit: Channel Seven
Over the following years, he terrified dozens of people during armed robberies at banks, A TAB outlet, a sports shop and a Target store, at which he fired a shot at a staffer, only for the bullet to travel through the man's shirt sleeve and into a wall.
Now going by the surname Pecotic and serving a minimum 14-year jail term for a 2012 armed robbery and siege at a house at Keilor East, the man known as "Badness" had realised he had not led a "productive life" and wanted to steer others away from crime, Dr FitzGerald said.
"He doesn't want others to make the same mistakes as he did," Dr FitzGerald said.
Binse had been motivated to admit to the crimes following his conversion to Islam and to apologise to his "untold victims". He did not identify the accomplices who were with him during the armed robberies.
Christopher Binse at a press conference in 2005.Credit: Anthony Johnson
Dr FitzGerald said Binse had nothing to gain from his confessions given his mental health was worsening and he had previously considered suicide.
But the lawyer stopped short of calling on Justice Terry Forrest not to extend Binse's current prison stretch.
Prosecutor Peter Rose, QC, said the historic offending was serious and that extra jail time was warranted. Binse had been armed with shotguns in most of the hold-ups and had donned either a mask and wig or balaclava to conceal his identity.
Justice Forrest, who jailed Binse in 2014, has sought a psychological report before he imposes sentence.