A robber who used a baseball bat on his "'weak dog" victim to enforce an alleged drug debt should be afforded leniency similar to his co-offender who intervened in the assault, a court has been told.
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Jake John Trewartha, 35, fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated robbery.
An agreed statement of facts reads in August 2021, Jennifer Jane Hanson, one of Trewartha's co-offenders, lured the victim to her Moncrieff house to enforce an alleged drug debt.
About one hour after the victim arrived, Trewartha and three others - Omar Haddara, Kyle Joseph Butkovic, and an unidentified man - arrived at Hanson's house.
Trewartha was holding a baseball bat, Butkovic holding a box-cutter style knife and the unidentified man holding a machete.
Hanson hid in her room.
The victim tried to leave through the back door, but he was grabbed and taken back to the couch where he was threatened.
Using his phone, the victim made two transfers, totalling $800, to Butkovic.
A third transfer was unsuccessful, triggering the unidentified man and Trewartha to strike him, who sustained scrapes to the head and arms as Haddara intervened.
The unidentified man then struck the victim in the head before Haddara intervened again.
The victim said he was not "f---ing around" before successfully transferring another $2515.
He was again assaulted, including by Trewartha, who said words to the effect of "let's just put him in the boot".
In total, the victim was struck three times to the head with the baseball bat and punched numerous times in the face.
Haddara then told the victim to get up and leave and not to go to hospital or report the matter to police.
Shortly after, the victim called his ex-partner who later drove him to hospital and called police. He was also able to cancel the third transaction and recover the $2515.
Two to three days before the robbery, the victim received numerous messages and missed calls from Haddara about an alleged debt.
"You're a weak dog and your debt has just doubled and your getting flogged when I see you," one message reads.
Butkovic had also spoken with the victim on the phone about a $600 debt for cocaine. Haddara and Hanson then spoke about the situation.
Haddara, in his early 30s, and Hanson, in her late 20s, were sentenced to community-based orders after they admitted their offending.
At the time the facts were being prepared in Trewartha's case, Butkovic had pleaded guilty.
During Trewartha's sentencing proceedings on Tuesday, defence lawyer Duncan Berents said parity with Haddara "plays a very significant role".
Mr Berents said the intensive corrections order given to Haddara "carries with it an inherent status of leniency".
"There are ... snakes and ladders or swings and roundabouts between the seriousness of Mr Haddara's position and the seriousness of Mr Trewartha's position," he said.
However, Mr Berents said Trewartha having a baseball bat and using it to inflict violence, albeit not "in any effective way", were aggravating features not in Haddara's case.
Mr Berents said his client had spent nearly one year in custody, resulting in "the very real impacts of specific deterrence ... the very real impacts of rehabilitation and change".
The defence lawyer also cited his client's disadvantaged upbringing, namely being exposed to a "household of violence and drugs" and his mother's mental health difficulties, to afford him leniency.
Mr Berents said the best option was a suspended sentence or to set a non-parole period to be backdated and expire imminently.
Prosecutor Morgan Howe said he agreed with the defence lawyer on a number of issues, including Trewartha's role, the objective seriousness of his offending, his upbringing, and the reasonable prospect of rehabilitation.
Mr Howe said deterring Trewartha had "been engaged to a degree" but it was not "significant as perhaps other matters of this type" because the offender's criminal history had a lack of violence.
However, he argued against a suspended sentence, saying it would be "unusual", and said imposing a non-parole period would be the usual and more appropriate course.
Justice Belinda Baker scheduled Thursday to deliver her sentence.
The court heard Butkovic's case was listed for a disputed facts hearing.
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