A woman who was confronted by balaclava-wearing men with guns at her Ardmona house said she still had nightmares about being chased across her yard and having a gun held to her face.
The woman had run from her house and was trying to get away from the men after they pushed their way into her home on August 19, 2021.
Jake Doherty, 29, of Mooroopna, Mario Mazzeo, 41, of Numurkah, and Adam Hasan, 38, of Shepparton, each pleaded guilty in the County Court to aggravated burglary and assault.
Mazzeo was also charged with a second assault, being a prohibited person possessing a firearm and being a prohibited person possessing an imitation firearm, while Doherty was charged with a summary charge of committing an indictable offence while on bail.
The court heard Mazzeo and Hasan were both carrying guns, and all three were wearing balaclavas, when the three men went to the house in the middle of the day.
The woman and a man were both home at the time and Doherty said to the man “this is a robbery, bitch” as he tried to muscle his way through the front door of the house.
The man who lived there pushed Doherty back and yelled to the woman to go to get help, before the men outside kicked the door in.
Hasan stood about 30cm from the man, pointed the gun at his chest and said “you want to threaten people and their children?”.
While he was doing this, Mazzeo ran out the back door and chased the woman into the yard before pointing the gun at her chest.
Back inside, the man scuffled with Doherty, with the pair trading punches before the resident could escape, running towards a neighbour’s house yelling “call the police, there’s a guy with a gun”.
Doherty, Hasan and Mazzeo then left.
When police searched Mazzeo’s house a month later, they found a pen pistol and a silencer.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the female victim said she no longer felt safe in her own home and had a recurring nightmare about a gun being held to her face.
She also spoke of not knowing the three accused before this day — although the man at the house recognised Doherty from him picking up a trailer at the property that a former short-term housemate had left there.
“We don’t understand why this happened to us,” the woman said.
“They were strangers.
“It’s something you see on the news and the television. It’s not something I thought would happen to me.”
In sentencing Doherty and Mazzeo, Judge Gerard Mullaly also referenced a victim impact statement from the male victim, saying the man had nightmares and had lost his trust in people.
“The fact that a group of men were disguised and armed with firearms is frightening,” he said.
Judge Mullaly noted difficulties in Doherty’s childhood and that he had an early introduction to cannabis and now had a methamphetamines addiction.
However, he said Doherty had “taken big steps” to address his drug addictions while on remand, including doing four months of drug rehabilitation at The Cottage, where he now also volunteers twice a week.
Doherty was sentenced to 331 days in prison — which was reckoned as time already served in pre-sentence detention — as well as a four-year community corrections order.
The order includes 200 hours of community work, with any time spent in programs for drug or mental health treatment or to address offending behaviour counting towards this.
In sentencing Mazzeo, Judge Mullaly noted he provided help to his elderly parents, and said he had started using methamphetamines after the separation from a partner, before falling back into it during COVID-19 times when work as a bricklayer was difficult.
However, the judge noted Mazzeo was now free from drugs.
He sentenced him to two years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of one year, with the 30 days spent in pre-sentence detention counting as time already served.
Shepparton shooting
Hasan also faced the County Court on a separate matter where he shot a man on September 7, 2021, two weeks after this aggravated burglary.
In that matter, Hasan pleaded guilty to intentionally causing injury, possessing a firearm while a prohibited person, possessing an imitation firearm while a prohibited person, and handling stolen goods.
The court was told two men went to a third man’s Shepparton house, as that man owed one of them money.
Hasan was at the third man’s house and after a discussion had been held between the other men about when the money would be paid, Hasan approached, said “remember me?” before shooting one of the men in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun.
The victim was taken to Goulburn Valley Health before being flown to the Alfred Hospital where he had surgery.
When police searched Hasan’s house, they found seven rounds of ammunition, parts of an imitation firearm gel blaster, which was made to resemble an AR15 rifle, and a Ducati motorbike that had been stolen from Melbourne in early August.
The court heard Hasan told police he was at the Shepparton house but “did not observe any shooting, but did hear a car backfire”.
He also told police he bought the motorbike but did not know it was stolen, and that the ammunition belonged to his partner who “wanted to make a necklace from it”.
Hasan’s barrister said the shooting was “all about drugs and drug associates” and that her client needed to “disassociate himself from drugs”.
Judge Mullaly will sentence Hasan on both matters at a later date.