A man will not serve further jail time over his role in helping a gunman escape the scene of a shooting at Hughes Shops.
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Todd Elphick, 27, pleaded guilty earlier this month to being an accessory after the fact to a crime committed by his friend Kai Yuen, 28, in May 2010.
Elphick was sitting in a car and saw Yuen running towards him with a double-barrel shotgun.
Yuen had just ambushed and murdered an old friend, Brendan Scott Welsh, 28, after an escalating tit-for-tat argument that began over a set of keys and the failure to return a borrowed car. Elphick drove towards the shotgun-wielding Yuen.
The shooter got inside, saying something like: ‘‘I think I shot someone; I need to get rid of the gun.’’
Elphick drove him from the scene, in fear of Yuen, and stopped to allow him to throw the shotgun, two spent shells, and four live shells down a drain. Yuen was jailed for 28 years earlier this year for murdering Mr Welsh, and for an unrelated brutal prison bashing last year.
Elphick had originally been charged with the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm – with prosecutors alleging he had helped Yuen in a plan to shoot Mr Welsh in the foot.
But a jury was unable to reach a verdict on the more serious charge earlier this year, forcing the court to re-list the matter.
Prosecutors and Elphick’s lawyers have since reached a deal, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of accessory after the fact to intentionally and unlawfully using an offensive weapon against another person in a way likely to endanger human life.
In this case, that offence carried a maximum penalty of five years.
But, in the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday, both Crown prosecutor Shane Drumgold and barrister John Purnell, SC, asked the court not to sentence him to any more jail time than the 225 days he had already served. Justice Hilary Penfold sentenced him to 225 days, backdated to December 15.
The sentencing of Elphick wraps up proceedings against all involved, or accused of involvement, in the Hughes Shops shooting. A third man, also charged with conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, was acquitted by a jury earlier this year.