Teenager appears in Children’s Court of Queensland at Toowoomba for mugging 65-year-old woman in Clifford Gardens carpark

In a ‘cowardly’ and ‘cruel’ attack, a 16-year-old saw the woman leaving the bank and decided to snatch her handbag, knocking her to the ground during the struggle. See what happened next as the teen tried to flee.

A teenager who knocked a woman to the ground and stole her handbag as she walked back to her car in the Clifford Gardens carpark has been ordered to serve a period of detention.

The 16-year-old, who as a juvenile cannot be named, already had nine pages of criminal history, which included previous robbery and wounding offences, before appearing in the Children’s Court of Queensland at Toowoomba on Thursday to plead guilty to robbery with personal violence and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald told the court according to the teenager’s pre-sentence report he considered himself the “leader of the pack” and admitted it had been his idea to commit the offence.

Ms Friedewald said the 65-year-old woman had been returning to her car after leaving the bank when the teenager sprang and grabbed at her handbag about 4pm on June 8 this year.

The court was told the victim fought back but was eventually knocked to the ground, injuring her hip, shoulder blade and back of her neck.

The youth scampered off into bushes with the handbag en route to a getaway car but he discarded the handbag when witnesses stepped in and tackled him, holding him until police arrived, she said.

A passer-by picked up the handbag and returned it to the victim, Ms Friedewald said.

The car in which the teenager was a passenger that took him to the shopping centre had been reported stolen from a Brisbane address, the court was told.

In a victim impact statement read to the court by Ms Friedewald, the victim said the incident had left her feeling “vulnerable, weak and a target” and she panicked when people came too close to her.

She felt badly about no longer trusting people, she said.

Ms Friedewald described the teenager’s offending as “gratuitous, it was cowardly and it was cruel”.

The court was told the boy was on bail for a previous robbery at the time for which he had since been sentenced in August to 12 months detention and was under the strict supervision of a conditional release order until January 19.

Ms Friedewald submitted had this matter been dealt with in August as well, the teen may have received further penalty.

The 16-year-old had spent 105 days in custody after the Clifford Gardens offending, she said.

Noting the importance of totality in sentencing and the provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, Judge Bernard Porter KC ordered the conviction not be recorded and sentenced the lad to the 105 days detention that he had already served.