Judges reject robbery conviction appeal for Thomas Jeffery Patch and Dakoda Shannon Manns

Two thieves who robbed a service station with a machete have failed in their attempt to have their convictions overturned. See why here.

A pair of bumbling service station bandits have had their bid from freedom rejected after a panel of Queensland Appeals Court judges found there was insufficient grounds to throw out a jury’s finding of guilt.

At the initial trial, the Crown prosecutor alleged that Thomas Jeffery Patch and Dakoda Shannon Manns entered Yuleba’s United Roadhouse service station on February 25, 2021 with their faces covered and armed with a machete

It was alleged they confronted the service station’s attendant and demanded that she hand over cash from the till.

The woman gave the pair about $300 in cash and as they were about to leave one turned around and asked for a packet of smokes.

Police were called immediately with an attendant telling the officers that she recognised the pair as they lived across the road from the service station and that Patch came into the store almost daily and had familiar voices and body language.

As for Manns, she said he had a familiar slouch.

Thomas Jeffery Patch and Dakoda Shannon Manns were found guilty of robbing the United Roadhouse at Yuleba on February 25, 2021.

Patch and Manns were arrested and charged with one count each of armed robbery in company and the matter was set down for a trial in the Roma District Court on July 21, 2022.

The attendant gave evidence at the trial and when pressed on how she could be sure that it was Patch and Manns behind the masks she told the court that Yuleba was a small community and she knew everyone that lived there.

She went on to say that she went to school with Patch through to year 9, was in the same class as him most of the time and that the classes numbered fewer than 10 students.

The jury found Patch and Manns guilty and the pair were sentenced to three years in jail, suspended for an operational period of four years after 15 months.

However, their lawyers appealed the finding of guilt on the grounds that there may have been a miscarriage of justice.

They argued the ‘identification’ evidence from the attendant should have been excluded from the trial.

The matter was set down for a Queensland Appeals Court hearing on March 8 where the appellants’ lawyers highlighted the attendant’s initial identification was in doubt.

They pointed to the first statements given to police where the attendant said she recognised the defendant’s by their body language but because they made an effort to distort their voices she was partially sure that it “sounded like them”.

Lawyers for Patch and Manns also pointed to a second witness who saw the pair coming and going from a nearby river with fishing gear in hand about an hour either side of the time of the robbery.

The court heard this second witness saw the pair wearing completely different clothes to what the suspects on the service station CCTV were seen to be wearing during the robbery and that police were unable to locate the machete, the cash or the packet of smokes.

Despite the perceived inconsistencies, the Queensland Court of Appeal dismissed the matter with Justice Philip Morrison finding the voice recognition was only one element of the identification.

“On the basis of what she saw and heard – and her familiarity with Patch and Manns both individually and together – she nominated them as the offenders on the day of the offence,” he said.

“As to that, she gave evidence, which the jury could accept, that she was certain of her recognition of them on the day in question, as she was at the trial.”

Originally published as Judges reject robbery conviction appeal for Thomas Jeffery Patch and Dakoda Shannon Manns