A hammer-holding carjacker who targeted a lone woman in Dandenong Square car park has been jailed.
Brody Spokes, 22, formerly of Pakenham, followed his victim to her car, and opened the driver’s side door as she started to reverse out of a parking spot about 11am on 10 October 2024.
He yanked her out of the Toyota Corolla, then drove the car rapidly in the wrong direction in a undercover car park filled with vehicles and pedestrians.
At the time, Spokes was bailed on a deferred sentence for other serious matters.
He was arrested in Dandenong six days later.
Spokes told police he didn’t remember the carjacking because he was on a lot of drugs at the time.
He pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to aggravated carjacking, unlicenced driving and reckless conduct endangering serious injury.
In sentencing on 19 September, Judge Scott Johns noted that Spokes’s heavy drug use and offending had roots in his profound childhood deprivation.
He was diagnosed with complex PTSD, ADHD and low cognitive functioning.
He left school at Grade 4 and was illiterate – which proved a large obstacle in complying with court orders and accessing services, Judge Johns noted.
In his plea hearing, Spokes engaged fully with Koori Court elders, spoke lovingly of his children and was repeatedly remorseful.
Judge Johns noted that during the carjacking, Spokes possessed the hammer but wasn’t using it in a wielding or brandishing manner at the time.
Assessed as a high risk of reoffending, Spokes is also still serving a four-and-a-half-year jail term for offences committed in 2022.
That sentence had been deferred to attend residential rehab but Spokes absconded. He was remanded and sentenced in November 2024.
For the Dandenong carjacking, Spokes was jailed for three years and seven months, served concurrently with his other jail term.
He will be eligible for parole in two years and three months.
Spokes was disqualified from driving for three-and-a-half years.
