Two men who started this week accused of a violent home invasion have avoided any jail time at all after their trial took an unusual turn.
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Prosecutors had alleged Kyle Butkovic, 27, and Ibrahim Kaddour, 24, barged into a Lyneham flat on November 5 last year where they stunned one of the occupants with an electric weapon.
It was alleged they viciously beat him and another man in an attempt to recoup a debt.
The pair pleaded not guilty to aggravated burglary.
But instead of facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the pair walked free from court on Thursday after prosecutors accepted their pleas to two lesser offences.
The pleas come after an ACT Supreme Court jury heard from eyewitnesses who gave very different and at times strange accounts of the evening.
Multiple inconsistencies also emerged between their evidence in court and the statements they had given to police and what they had told prosecutors.
A male housemate told a bizarre story that began with him being blinded by a light on opening the door that evening before being struck in the chest with an electric weapon.
He said he was punched more than 40 times to the head and then his friend on the couch was beaten.
The man said he only that night noticed a woman in a toga from a Halloween party several days ago still unconscious in his bed.
But his female housemate told the court she had introduced the woman, a friend of hers, to the man and they had been out shopping together only that afternoon.
The other man who was allegedly beaten was also to give a very different version of events that night, the court heard.
The jury was discharged on Thursday without retiring to consider a verdict.
Instead, the accused pair pleaded guilty to a charge each of common assault and possessing an offensive weapon with intent.
Butkovic and Kaddour admitted they entered the home where a scuffle ensued.
During the incident, each man struck the men inside once, an agreed statement of facts says.
Butkovic picked up a conducted energy weapon and Kaddour picked up a black folding knife.
One of the female housemates told the men to leave but they didn't.
Scared, the other female housemate climbed out of the second story bedroom window and asked a neighbour to call police.
When police arrived they arrested the pair. They each spent 11 days in custody following the incident.
A barrister for Butkovic, Beth Morrisroe, said he came before the judge for sentence for a low-level common assault.
She said he was a relatively young man with no history of violence and a supportive family.
Travis Jackson, the barrister for Kaddour, said the offence involved only a single application of force.
He said Kaddour had been studying in relation to the family business and been working for his father - who had put the fear of God into him - for months now.
He now had the promise of running the successful business, Mr Jackson said.
Butkovic and Kaddour were convicted and sentenced to an 18 month and 24 month good behaviour order respectively.
Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson gave Kaddour a longer good behaviour order because he was already on a suspended sentence for an assault at the time of the incident.
She told the pair it was "time to grow up".