Two home-invaders have been jailed after holding a resident at knifepoint while looting his family home and garage in Mulgrave.
Jal Luak, 20, and Tietdong Chuol, 21, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to home invasion and armed robbery for the break-in about 3am on 7 June 2024.
Within an hour, they were arrested by police in one of the stolen vehicles in Cranbourne North.
At the time of the invasion, the victim, his partner and two children, as well as his mother were sleeping.
Since then, the children have woken crying and afflicted with nightmares.
The family have moved out, with their sense of security shattered, the victim stated to the court.
“No one should suffer what they have suffered,” Judge Peter Rozen stated in sentencing on 17 July.
On the night, a masked Luak and an unknown offender entered, each armed with a serrated knife up to 15 centimetres, while Chuol waited in a getaway car.
They set off a motion sensor, which activated an alert on the victim’s phone.
Awoken, he turned on the hallway light and called out ‘Who’s there?’
Luak pointed his knife at the man, demanding his keys. “Don’t move or I’ll stab you,” he allegedly said.
With a blade pressed against his neck, the man led the intruders to a keys cabinet.
The pair stole keys for a BMW M6 wagon and an Audi RS e-tron GT coupe, as well as two Hermes wallets, two Bvlgari wedding bands and a VCA-branded bracelet.
A Porsche 911 coupe was parked in the garage. The unknown offender made stabbing motions as he demanded the keys.
The victim insisted it was his friend’s car and he didn’t have the keys.
In the driveway, the victim was pushed to ground, while a balaclava-clad Chuol and the unknown offender threatened the victim with stabbing motions.
Luak drove away the BMW in convoy with the unknown offender in the Audi and Chuol in the getaway car.
Within 40 minutes, police tracked the BMW using an app on the victim’s phone as well as the Air Wing helicopter.
Learner-driver Luak, with passenger Chuol, drove over police stop-sticks on Thompsons Road, Cranbourne North.
They continued travelling dangerously on damaged tyres on the wrong side of William Thwaites Boulevard.
Within minutes, Luak lost control of the wagon and crashed into a home’s front garden on Brolin Terrace.
Both men fled and were arrested nearby.
Luak pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and being a learner driver without a valid supervising driver, and Chuol also pled to possessing cannabis.
Since their arrest, both had been remanded in adult custody.
Luak successfully argued for being sentenced to a youth justice centre partly to maximise his rehabilitation chances.
In adult jail, he wouldn’t have access to Youth Justice’s adolescent violence intervention program, Judge Rozen noted.
“To exclude him from that is to effectively give up.”
Luak was a late-onset offender, who was at a critical point of his life when impressions matter, he said.
Born in Egypt, Luak had regularly used cannabis, Xanax and other drugs up till his arrest.
His criminal history was limited. But he had previously been sentenced to a community corrections order for burglary and car theft, and failed to attend the required judicial monitoring and Corrections appointments, Judge Rozen noted.
The South-Sudan born Chuol had PTSD from growing up in an abusive household.
He abused drugs and alcohol but was in a five-year relationship with a law-abiding girlfriend.
He had a “limited” history of car theft and attempted robbery, with “reasonable” rehabilitation prospects.
Luak was sentenced to a youth justice centre for three years and two months.
Too old for youth detention, Chuol was sentenced to two years and three months in adult prison. He will be eligible for parole after serving 16 months.
Their sentences include 396 days in pre-sentence custody.
