Drug addict jailed for aggravated robberies

Press, 5 October 1985, Page 5

Drug addict jailed for aggravated robberies

A drug addict who committed two aggravated robberies on the same day was jailed for three years by Mr Justice Hardie-Boys in the High Court yesterday. The Court had a duty not just to the offender but to the community as a whole, and it had a responsibility to impose a deterrent sentence, his Honour told Peter John Regan, aged 23, unemployed. Regan had admitted robbing Helen Jill Gadsby at the Richmond Working Men’s Club of $6O on September 6, and Mary Louise Hempseed and Betty Mary Liggett of $3114 at the Burwood Post Office on the same day while armed with a flick knife. He and a female associate were apprehended by the police when their getaway car ran out of petrol. Regan told the police he was desperate for. money to sustain his drug habit. He also admitted stealing a $950 television set from a motel in October last year. Counsel, Miss E. H. B. Thompson, said that little could be said about the offences except that all three had been committed to sustain “a chronic and

severe drug addiction.” Noone had been injured, and apart from the television set the money had been returned to its rightful owners. Miss Thompson likened Regan to “the little girl with a curl.” He had so much potential but was so unstable. The aggravated robberies had “a certain crassness about them.” The getaway car had run out of petrol, and both Regan and the other occupant were “addled.” Miss Thompson submitted that the Odyssey House drug rehabilitation centre was Regan’s last chance to become a useful member of the community. Custodial sentences had had no effect in the past. Odyssey House was prepared to take Regan and make progress reports available to the Court. Miss Thompson submitted that sentence should be deferred until Regan had finished Neave, for the Crown, said that such a course “would be neither practical nor consonant with the safety of the community.”

His Honour said that while he had a great deal of respect for Odyssey House and its work and ideals there would be public outcry if a man who had committed two aggravated robberies in one day were to be dealt with in this way. The offences were serious, although they might not have been very well planned. Regan had been disguised and carried a knife. The women had been threatened. The relatively small amount of money taken was not the point. “It is the fear and alarm caused to innocent people going about their daily affairs that is of greatest concern to the Court,” His Honour said. The public had a right to protection from such behaviour, he said in jailing Regan for three years.