By Danielle Kutchel
A Dandenong man has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for participating in a violent aggravated home invasion that has left a woman too scared to sleep at night.
Barnaba Mauot was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday 15 September after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated home invasion and two counts of armed robbery.
He was captured on CCTV attending an Oakleigh East property on 25 March 2020, along with six other males.
The court heard Mauot did not try to hide his appearance as he approached the front door of the property, but directed the rest of the group to hide while he knocked on the door.
When the door opened, Mauot directed the group – who were armed with weapons including a machete, a shotgun and duct tape – to enter.
The group of men kicked and punched the resident who had opened the door, demanding he tell them where the safe was kept.
The court heard the victim’s mother was then assaulted and threatened with a shotgun.
The men stole money and an iPhone from the woman before turning their attention to her second son, who was bashed with the butt of the shotgun.
The men fled with the property’s safe, around $400-$500 plus debit cards and several items of jewellery.
Judge Carmody told the court that he was not suggesting that Mauot was the “leader of the pack” in the offending, and nor was he armed at the time; however he accepted the prosecution’s argument that Mauot was complicit in the offending.
Mauot was arrested on 29 March 2020 when police executed a search warrant at his address, where they found similar headgear to that Mauot was seen wearing on CCTV on the night of the offences.
Police also retrieved the stolen phone.
In her victim impact statement, the female resident said the home invasion had affected one of her sons so much that he no longer leaves his bedroom.
She said she had withdrawn from her friends, panics when people knock on her door and is too scared to sleep at night for fear of further break-ins.
The court heard Mauot had been using multiple different drugs in the lead up to the offending, and had been assessed as low-average in global cognitive functioning as well as having PTSD.
He had also witnessed violence in South Sudan and in a refugee camp in Egypt, and had lost his father at the age of seven.
Mauot was assessed as having a medium risk of violent reoffending.
He also had two prior convictions for robbery, for which he had been on community corrections orders at the time of the home invasion.
In sentencing, Judge Carmody told the court he had taken into account Mauot’s early guilty plea – but he said “prison hasn’t been and cannot be avoided”.
“Your moral culpability for this offending is high,” Judge Carmody said.
“You and your co-offenders deliberately targeted this home and violated the occupants’ right to feel safe.”
Mauot was sentenced to five years and six months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and six months.
Judge Carmody urged Mauot to stay away from drugs and his co-offenders, and to use the support of his family and the advice of the parole board to turn his life around and “be the person you can be”.
