An institutionalized ex-prisoner who tried to rob a Canberra service station with a beer bottle committed the crime because wanted to go back behind bars, a court has heard.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Jason Jerrard is being sentenced in the ACT Supreme Court for holding up a Braddon service station with a longneck bottle in June last year.
The court today heard the 42-year-old demanded cigarettes and a mobile phone recharge card from his victim but walked off empty handed.
His lawyer said Jerrard walked 100 to 200 metres away and waited for the police to arrive and arrest him.
The defence lawyer argued his client, who suffers from schizophrenia, had become so institutionalised he struggled to live outside a correctional centre.
Jerrard was already on bail at the time for smashing a window and, when police arriving, telling them words to the effect of 'I think you're looking for me'.
The defendant has already spent almost 350 days in custody in relation to the incidents.
But the court heard Jerrard was now ready to adapt to life in the community and accept treatment for his mental illness.
The man's lawyer said his client was now "lucid, objective, reasonable" and taking his medication.
And lawyers at both ends of the bar table urged Justice Hilary Penfold to make a psychiatric treatment order part of her eventual sentence.
The judge will hand down a sentence next month.
