A MILDURA teenager will spend the next 12 months in youth detention over the armed robbery of a convenience store, while his brother has been released from custody over a separate armed robbery committed just days later.
A Children’s Court was told the detained 17-year-old and a co-accused armed themselves with knives and robbed the PJs Supermarket and Newsagency of more than $5000 last Sunday week.
The court was told that youth justice workers had been “turned inside out” trying to devise assistance programs for the teenager who had refused to engage with them.
Magistrate Dan Muling, who sentenced the teenager to 12 months in a Youth Justice Centre, questioned what the future held for the repeat offender.
“Every opportunity has been provided to you and you don’t take it up,” the magistrate said.
“I don’t know what your future is,” he said. “One day the penny will drop.”
The pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, used shirts to cover their heads before the 17-year-old confronted a staff member and demanded money while his co-accused kept lookout.
The teenagers later met up with two co-accused in Henderson Park opposite PJs and another man and divided the money between then.
The two youths who entered the store were arrested by police the following day.
Police said the 17-year-old had been released from detention late last year having failed to receive parole and soon returned to his “old ways”.
His defence counsel told the court that it was “a matter of difficulty to find an unturned stone” that might assist the youth.
“Nothing seems to be working ... nothing has worked,” he said.
“I can’t think of anything that hasn’t been tried. It hasn’t taken him very long in the community to revert to his old ways.”
While his client had had “a deprived and difficult upbringing”, the only course that the court could take was a period of detention.
Magistrate Muling said it was sad that the teenager had previously made promises to Aboriginal elders through the Koori Children’s Court, but had continued to let them down.
When asked if he was upset that he had disappointed the elders, the teenager replied: “Just a little bit.”
The magistrate said “every opportunity” had been provided to the accused but “you didn’t take it up”.
He said the teenager had engaged in a “very serious offence of armed robbery” and had commented to authorities after his arrest that he could not believe that he could have been so stupid.
Mr Muling said he could not understand what the teenager believed he would achieve by his reoffending.
Meanwhile, the offender’s brother has been released from custody following the armed robbery on the Caltex Service Station at the corner of Fifteenth Street and Walnut Avenue last Friday.
The youth was armed with a cricket ball-sized rock when he confronted a female employee and stole $200.
A Children’s Court was told the youth neither remembered planning or carrying out the robbery and drug use may provide some explanation.
His counsel said the offending was in a different category to his brother’s earlier offending and there was “some hope for himself in the future” and a “much more optimistic outcome” forecast.
The court was told the offender was “keen” to engage in group conferencing and apologise to the victim.
Magistrate Muling said that while the focus of Children’s Courts was the rehabilitation of offenders, the accused would move from “the little league to the big league” when he turned 18.
“Perhaps your brother is the exception (to rehabilitation) at this stage,” he said.
Counsel said the teen was keen to further his education and hoped he had not caused the female service station employee “too much harm”.
However, Mr Muling said the female had probably not slept since the armed robbery and probably struggled to go to work.
He said the group conferencing would give the youth the opportunity to hear first hand how his actions had impacted on her and on the community.
In granting the youth bail for sentence at a later date, the magistrate said the teen’s family and youth justice support staff would feel “gutted” by his criminal behaviour.
This article appeared in Tuesday’s Sunraysia Daily 31/01/2012.
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