Aaron Sydney Green sentenced to six years in jail for armed robbery of Oakey service station

A man who was arrested in dramatic scenes after he robbed a service station has been told to “grow up”, with his time behind bars referred to as ‘home’.

A 28-year-old father of three who has spent so much time in jail his children have become accustomed to speaking to him through a prison screen has been jailed again for armed robbery.

Aaron Sydney Green was armed with a knife when he and an unidentified co-offender who was armed with a sawn-off rifle entered an Oakey service station on May 15 and demanded cash, Toowoomba District Court heard.

The pair fled with just $429 but police were soon able to track the vehicle Green was in and he was caught and taken into custody some 16 minutes after leaving the service station.

He made full admissions to police though he wouldn’t name his co-offender, Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald said.

Police are responding to reports of an armed robbery at the Puma service station on Bridge Street in Oakey, about 4pm on Monday, May 15.

At the time, Green was on a suspended sentence having been sentenced to three years’ jail for stabbing a prison yard rival at a Bridge St service station in Toowoomba on July 31, 2021.

Green pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding from that offence and was sentenced to three years jail, to be suspended after having served 10 months.

Ms Friedewald said Green had a lengthy criminal history in Queensland and New South Wales which included previous robberies and other offences.

Green had spent 107 days in custody since his arrest but he was still serving out his previous sentence, she said.

Green’s barrister David Jones KC told the court his client had been in and out of custody so often since an early age that he sometimes preferred to be in jail.

Referring to an earlier armed robbery, Mr Jones said that it was “simply the case that Mr Green was experiencing anxiety and wanted to get back to jail, he committed an armed robbery.

Aaron Sydney Green

“He went with his face exposed, his tattoos exposed, everything about him, and committed the crime directly under the CCTV footage,” Mr Jones said.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren SC said that, with his history, Green was looking at six years’ jail for this armed robbery and calculated for the total sum of $429 stolen, that equated to something less than 20c a day.

He told Green it was time he grew up and looked after his family.

“Mr Green you are still only 28 years of age,” Judge Horneman-Wren said.

“Prison has unfortunately become a normal environment for you, it doesn’t have to be that way.

“On one view of it, your wanting to return ‘home’ to prison, as it’s been referred to, is, to be frank and honest with you, entirely selfish.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren SC

“This doesn’t just affect you, it affects your partner and the three children you have with her.

“In that 10 months when you were in the community you fathered another child for the woman to raise in your absence, for that child to not have their father in their life, and to only know you through a screen at a jail.

“You need to grow up in that regard.

“You’re going to be in your 30s, one suspects, by the time you get out of prison on this occasion.

“It will be a matter of great tragedy if you commit your life to continue as it has to this point.”

Judge Horneman-Wren sentenced Green to six years in jail but, declaring 107 days pre-sentence custody as time already served, ordered he be eligible to apply for release on parole as of May 14, 2025.