Caleb Hayden Hearn pleads guilty in Toowoomba court to frightening crime bender
A terrifying pack ambush, menacing texts, and a rooftop negotiation. Prison time did not dissuade a regional Queensland man from reoffending just one day after release.
A man with a disadvantaged background has received immediate parole despite a shocking series of offences involving a home ambush, threatening texts and a rooftop negotiation.
Toowoomba man Caleb Hayden Hearn pleaded guilty before Toowoomba Magistrates Court on November 25 to 11 charges, including trespass, domestic violence, drug, and weapons offences.
The court heard the 24-year-old, in March this year, went with a group of associates to an address in Arthur Street, Dalby, wearing a face mask and brandishing a knife and hammer.
The group then approached the home, taunting the person inside.
“He attempted to gain entry by coaxing the complainant outside, the complainant ran out and chased the defendant off his property,” Police prosecutor Senior Constable Kinsley Weir said.
CCTV footage then showed Hearn run to a nearby Hungry Jack’s, where he dropped the knife in full view of the camera.
While not captured for this offence, Hearn was later incarcerated on other unrelated charges and released on parole in October of the same year.
One day after his release, he began sending a slew of menacing messages to a former partner through a friend’s Facebook account.
“He said he would be attending addresses associated to her and “would do whatever he had to do”,” Constable Weir said.
A week following, he again came to the attention of the police when he climbed on a residential shed roof nearby St Mary’s College in Toowoomba.
“He knew he was wanted … he said he intended to inject methylamphetamine,” Constable Weir said.
Hearn surrendered a knife, then injected a substance into his arm, before climbing down to police.
Defence solicitor Michael Corbin detailed to the court the traumatic circumstances of Hearn’s upbringing: his mother and father dying while he was a child, struggles at school and losing connection to his remaining family.
He added Hearn’s life was coloured by consistent drug use.
“He accepts that his use of drugs has been a significant imposition on his position to find a way forward and to become a more useful or contributing member of society,” Mr Corbin said.
“His future is going to come down to his ability to address his drug use.
“We can put him on any number of orders but ultimately he is the one who has to make the decision to fix it.”
Magistrate Kyna Morice sentenced Hearn to six months’ imprisonment, declaring 41 days of presentence custody as time already served.
He was given immediate parole for this sentence and further placed under a three-month suspended sentence for an operational period of nine months.
Hearn was also given a $500 good behaviour bond for six months.
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Originally published as Caleb Hayden Hearn pleads guilty in Toowoomba court to frightening crime bender
