Canberra's underworld matriarch has been sent back to jail over a violent standover job, while the baseball bat-wielding former bikie boss who acted as her "muscle" has had his prison stay extended.
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Fresh from carrying out a home invasion together eight days earlier, Sharon Stott and David Evans went to the Kambah house of small-time heroin dealer Catherine Howsan on January 18 last year.
In the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, Justice John Burns said the notorious criminals had hatched an extortion plan.
The judge believed they knew someone vulnerable, lacking in credibility and unlikely to contact police would eventually turn up.
A heroin user happened to arrive at the same time as Stott and Evans, with the latter locking the door behind him and immediately picking up a baseball bat that was leaning against a lounge.
For the next hour, the victim was ordered to sit in a chair, while Stott demanded payment of a fictional $20,000 debt and Evans stood menacingly with the bat to encourage compliance.
Justice Burns said it was telling that Stott and Evans did not discuss their plot once inside, indicating that while the choice of victim may have been opportunistic there was certainly "a pre-existing plan".
He said Stott went on to express an intention to cable-tie the victim and take him back to her house, where her dogs might attack him, if he didn't hand over the money.
This proved to be the downfall of the plan because the terrified victim, aware of Stott's reputation, panicked and tried to run.
Evans responded with a flurry of blows - striking the victim probably three or times with the bat - despite Stott's efforts to get him to stop.
The victim eventually managed to grab a knife from the kitchen, and to chase Stott and Evans away.
Following a joint trial earlier this year, Justice Burns found the pair guilty of unlawful confinement and making a demand with a threat. Evans was also found guilty of intentionally inflicting actual bodily harm.
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Sentencing the duo on Thursday, Justice Burns said both had maintained their innocence and therefore shown no remorse.
Stott continued to claim she was the victim of an assault at the Kambah house, while Evans denied that he was there.
The judge said neither offender was entitled to leniency because of their "very significant" criminal histories.
He said Stott, 58, had served a number of jail sentences and boasted a social network "comprised mainly of criminal connections".
Those connections included Evans, a serial offender and 34-year-old former president of the Satudarah outlaw motorcycle gang's Canberra chapter.
Justice Burns said Stott had been assessed as suitable for an intensive correction order, which is a jail sentence served in the community.
But the judge said that would not be appropriate in this case.
"Your total lack of remorse means that it is important that you feel the full weight of the sentences of imprisonment, which are the only just and appropriate sentences for your offending," Justice Burns told Stott.
Justice Burns sentenced Stott to a backdated jail term of three years and four months, with a non-parole period of two years and two months.
With time already served, Stott will become eligible for release in June 2022.
Evans, meanwhile, was handed an aggregate sentence of four years and four months.
Already behind bars for different crimes, the former demolition worker will not begin serving this most recent jail term until September 2024.
Justice Burns also reset Evans' non-parole period, which had been due to expire in March 2023. It is now set to end in July 2025.
