A man was hit in the head several times with a wooden bat and forced to sign over ownership of his car during a violent aggravated robbery in Wanniassa that left him fearing for his life.
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The two men responsible were sentenced to jail last month, but will serve their sentences through intensive correction orders rather than time behind bars.
ACT Supreme Court judgments published this week said a 20-year-old man pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery over the July 2018 incident. The court gave the man the pseudonym XXL because he was also being sentenced for a burglary committed when he was underage.
The man's co-offender in the robbery, 32-year-old Sunnrai Goodge, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and making a demand with a threat to endanger the health, safety or physical wellbeing of a person.
Justice David Mossop's judgments said Goodge sent the victim abusive messages through Facebook Messenger on July 1, 2018, and threatened to come over and "put him to bed".
Goodge was angry because he had heard the victim, who owed him about $1500 at that point, had bought a new car.
The same night, XXL sent the victim messages accusing the victim of making inappropriate contact with XXL's girlfriend. The victim responded by denying this.
About 2.30am the next day, the victim woke when he heard a knock on the door of his granny flat, which was behind his parents' house in Wanniassa.
He opened the door and XXL forced his way inside, yelling and screaming while holding a wooden bat and a knife about 15 centimetres long. Goodge, who was with XXL, also entered the granny flat.
"XXL began to wave his knife in the victim's face before striking him on the left side of his head a number of times using the wooden bat," Justice Mossop's judgments said.
"XXL demanded the victim sign over ownership of his Audi vehicle to Mr Goodge whilst threatening him with the knife.
"The victim wrote a note stating that he signed over ownership of his Audi vehicle to Mr Goodge.
"He only did so because XXL had assaulted him with the bat earlier and was fearful he would use the knife to cause him further injury."
Goodge and XXL knocked over several items in the granny flat before leaving with the victim's car, as well as his wallet, phone, money box and a Taser.
The victim was taken to hospital after going into the main house and telling his mother what had happened.
Ten days after the attack, Goodge sent the victim more threatening Facebook messages.
He said the victim had been ignoring requests to pay back the money he owed, and threatened to come back for "round two, three, four, five and so on".
In a victim impact statement, the victim said he feared for his life during the attack, which caused him to "sink into a depressive state". This had an impact on his relationship with his mother and then-partner.
The victim's mother also said she had lived in fear of the robbers coming back, and that she had suffered from stress and anxiety since the attack.
Justice Mossop sentenced XXL in December to two years and four months in jail. The sentence was backdated by a year to take into account time spent in custody.
Goodge, who had been on bail, was sentenced to 19 months in jail.
Both men will serve their sentences through intensive correction orders, which allow offenders to serve jail sentences in the community.
