Taylor Schmidt, 22, faced the victim’s family in the ACT Supreme Court on Monday and told the court that he deserves to be in jail for a long time.

Schmidt and his co-accused pleaded guilty to murder in September, more than two years after Mr Zhao’s body was discovered in the early hours of August 4, 2011.

Mr Zhao had arrived at the Jolimont Centre in Civic about 4am on a bus from Melbourne.

The 27-year-old university graduate began walking home to Gungahlin along Northbourne Avenue after failing to find a taxi, where he ran into Schmidt and his co-offender.

The pair, who had armed themselves with a machete and baseball bat, knocked Mr Zhao to the ground and dragged him several metres from the footpath where they took his mobile phone and $21 cash.

Schmidt struck Mr Zhao with the bat, which caused him to cry out. His co-accused then tried to frighten Mr Zhao into silence by swinging the machete in a threatening manner, telling him to be quiet before hitting him in the wrist.

The pair then fatally beat him, breaking his skull and leaving his brain exposed.

Schmidt returned to the ACT Supreme Court on Monday where he read a handwritten note to Mr Zhao’s family and friends. Schmidt described Mr Zhao as a good man who was tragically taken from his family.

‘‘When I think about it all, I feel like I can’t breathe,’’ he said.

‘‘For so long, I didn’t want to accept what I’d done.’’ Schmidt said he should have stopped using drugs and ‘‘cleaned up’’ his life.

‘‘I blame no one but myself,’’ he said.

‘‘I know I’ll be in jail for a long time. It’s what I deserve ... I know you’ll never forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself.’’

Schmidt admitted that he initially lied to the police about his physical involvement in the incident, but maintained that he only struck Mr Zhao once.

‘‘In the beginning, I didn’t want to accept any responsibility for what I did,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m not trying to deny things any more.’’ In his final submission, Schmidt’s lawyer said his client was very young at the time of the offence and had since ‘‘demonstrated improvement’’ in his conduct, despite previous confrontations with staff within the Alexander Maconochie Centre.

He said Schmidt had expressed ‘‘true remorse’’ for the crime, which was not premeditated.

But the prosecution said the murder had been committed with ‘‘callous indifference to human life’’ and that Schmidt had attempted to flee Canberra following the ‘‘brutal, vicious and unprovoked attack’’.

Justice Richard Refshauge will hand down his sentence in the ACT Supreme Court on December9.

Schmidt’s co-accused, who cannot be named as he was a juvenile at the time, was sentenced to 17 years’ jail last month.