Hutchins star student jailed for heroin-fuelled armed robbery

A Tasmanian private school boy, who had almost-perfect university entrance scores, became addicted to heroin – that’s when his life went downhill.

A FORMER Hutchins star pupil with a 99.4 university entrance score has been jailed in Melbourne for a $50 knifepoint robbery to fund his heroin addiction.

Cyton Tong, who has now been prescribed a “last-resort” and potentially-fatal medication for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, was on bail for possessing a controlled weapon when he robbed a liquor store in Victoria Street, Abbotsford, in June last year.

After stealing a can of pre-mixed alcohol, he pointed a black-handled knife at the store attendant and demanded a $50 note, the County Court of Victoria heard.

Judge Christopher Ryan said Tong, who is currently on 22-hour-a-day lockdown in jail due to COVID-19 restrictions, was born in Tasmania to a biochemist father and retail worker mother.

He said his father died when Tong was a child, but he completed his studies at the Hutchins School and enrolled in pharmacy studies at university.

However, he only completed two semesters before working some years at McDonald’s and developing a heroin addiction at age 21.

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He was involuntarily committed to hospital in Melbourne last year two months before the armed holdup, and has since been treated at the high-security Thomas Embling forensic mental health hospital and in mental health units at Ravenhall and Port Phillip prisons.

Judge Ryan said a treatment order, instead of a stint in prison, wasn’t suitable as the holdup wasn’t solely prompted by Tong’s mental ill health.

“Your offending was not motivated by any delusional notions but rather a desire for money to buy heroin to feed your longstanding habit,” he said.

“I am unable to say to what extent your mental illness played a part in that offending. Certainly, you are presently profoundly psychiatrically unwell … but it was your drug addiction that was the root of the instant offending.”

He said Tong’s offending didn’t fall at the lower end of the range of seriousness.

“You committed an armed robbery during the day, on a soft target being a liquor store, and you threatened with a knife a female attendant who was simply going about her lawful employment,” Judge Ryan said.

Tong, who pleaded guilty to theft and armed robbery, was jailed for two-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of one year and nine months.