“Things got a bit crazy,” Chad Adam Carrington explained to the police after his arrest for a drug-deal robbery that has brought a two-year jail term.
The Christchurch District Court sentencing heard how the drug deal went all wrong at a central city house on December 4.
Defence counsel for 25-year-old Carrington, Tim Mackenzie, said it was a case of “three people having someone up about some drugs they had purchased that the weren’t happy about”.
Carrington had pleaded guilty to the charge of assault with intent to rob and Mr Mackenzie said his client accepted a jail term would be imposed.
Carrington described his own pre-sentence report as “the best he ever had”, and had been busy in custody on remand doing an alcohol and drug support course and an employment skills course. He eventually hoped to move to Perth to live with his mother.
Mr Mackenzie said Carrington had written apology letters to the victim and the court.
He has been given a first strike warning for repeat violent offenders.
Judge Paul Kellar said it was alleged that Carrington carried out the offending with two women. One is still to be sentenced and the other has pleaded not guilty. The one who has denied the charge was armed with a taser, police say.
One of the women contacted the victim through Facebook and “set her up” for meeting, over a perceived drug debt of $300.
The message lured the woman to a 9pm meeting at a central city address, for a drugs deal. When the victim got inside and sat down with one of the women, Carrington and the other woman emerged and locked the door.
“Remember me?” Carrington said, before standing over her and shouting about the money.
He took her cellphone and demanded she unlock it.
One of the woman was allegedly holding a taser electro-shock device close to the victim’s head.
The other woman punched the victim in the head while Carrington yelled that she was not getting out until the debt was paid.
With the taser crackling near her face, the victim provided the code to unlock the phone.
Carrington went outside where the victim’s boyfriend had been waiting in a car, and demanded the money and told him he had better get the money “if he wanted to see his girlfriend again”.
The boyfriend drove off and called the police, while receiving calls from Carrington repeating the demands for the money using the victim’s phone.
When police arrived, Carrington was co-operative and admitted the victim had been held against her will. “Things got a bit crazy,” he explained.
He has three previous convictions for assault and one for threatening to kill which brought a jail term in 2014.
His pre-sentence report describes a long-standing drug addiction which has fuelled much of his offending. He is seen as a high risk of further offending.
Judge Kellar jailed him for two years, with six months of special post-release conditions including sessions with a departmental psychologist.
“Thank you, sir,” said Carrington as the sentencing ended, and he began his jail term.
The post Court hears of drug robbery that went ‘crazy’ appeared first on Courtnews.co.nz.