Kahni Brown-Cross: Longford woman guilty of violent robbery

A Tasmanian woman befriended a man and then lured him to a property where four masked assailants were waiting, a court has heard.

The meth addiction of a young Tasmanian woman had escalated to consuming $1500 worth of the drug a day when she lured a man to a violent robbery, a court has heard.

Longford woman Kahni Brown-Cross, 20, pleaded guilty in Launceston Supreme Court on Tuesday to a count of aggravated robbery committed at Ravenswood on the morning of July 28 last year.

The court heard the victim and his friend pulled up outside a pub about 11pm the night prior and struck up a conversation with Brown-Cross and a friend.

The group cruised around town for several hours before the victim went home to his hotel – he had only just moved to Launceston – about 3.30am.

At 5.30am, the victim received a text from Brown-Cross telling him to come to an address at Ravenswood to spend more time together.

When he arrived, he was let in by Brown-Cross and saw three men down the hall wearing ski masks and another beside him.

As he stepped inside he felt a blow to the back of his head which made him feel “dizzy” and he was manhandled to a couch, the court heard.

Once seated another male punched him to the face and said, “Why are you talking to my girlfriend?” referring to Brown-Cross.

The victim was forced to remove his jacket, which contained headphones, his iPhone and car keys, and the group attempted to get the man to sign a sheet of paper transferring registration of his car but he did not comply.

Brown-Cross and the man purporting to be her “boyfriend” dropped the victim to his hotel and then sped off.

He suffered a lump to the back of his head, cuts on his lip and a black eye as a result of the bashing, the court heard.

The car was subsequently discovered a few weeks later in the Zeehan/Strahan area in a damaged condition.

About $1700 worth of clothes in the back seat at the time of the theft had disappeared, and the phone and headphones were never discovered.

Brown-Cross was arrested at Devonport on August 7 last year, the court heard.

She was bailed but failed to appear on October 12, leading to her subsequent arrest on November 5.

She has remained remanded in custody since that date.

The court heard she had received multiple sentences in the Magistrates Court since her second arrest, but her offending wasn’t detailed in open court.

Defence counsel Ben Ashman told the court his client had a prejudicial upbringing and was introduced to drugs from a young age.

She was using cannabis “daily” by age 12 and by 16 had progressed to a full-blown meth addiction.

Mr Ashman told the court that for up to three years prior to her current offending, she was using up to $500 of the drug daily but in the immediate lead-up to the robbery had progressed to up to $1500 a day.

The court did not hear details of how she was funding her addiction.

Justice Robert Pearce adjourned the sentencing hearing part-heard to June 30 to enable him to consider a point of law.

He also ordered a pre-sentence report into Brown-Cross.