HIS mother’s bed was a place where a Wagga boy should have felt safe, but instead it was where the terrified youngster offered to give a home invader money if he just left his mother alone.
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The cowardly bandit was Ashmont man Zac Leroy, fresh from two service stations heists.
Leroy, 22, was committed to Wagga District Court for sentence after pleading guilty this week to three charges: assault with intent to rob while armed with an offensive weapon; robbery in company; and aggravated break, enter and steal in company.
According to agreed facts tendered to Wagga Local Court, Leroy broke into a Glenfield Park home with two other males about 5.30am on September 5 last year.
Leroy went into the main bedroom, where a woman was asleep with her four children while her husband was out of town.
Pointing a broom handle at the woman, Leroy over the next few minutes demanded car keys and money.
The police facts said the woman was terrified and she and her children were screaming in fear.
“A child of the victim told the accused he would give him money if he would leave his mother alone,” the facts said.
Eventually Leroy and his mates left the house with a backpack stuffed with iPads belonging to the family.
The manager heard the commotion and saw what what happening on CCTV.
Armed with a torch, the manager confronted Leroy and during a struggle the manager was stabbed in the shoulder with a pair of scissors, suffering a wound two centimetres deep that required three stitches.
Leroy fled empty handed, but about 9pm the same night he walked into the Westside Petroleum service station at Tolland with another male.
Agreed facts said Leroy punched the male console operator a number of times “causing him to slump to his knees before falling to the floor”.
Leroy stood over his victim while his crony scooped up $1500 cash and $3000 worth of cigarettes.
Leroy was arrested the next day, hours after the home invasion.
He will be sentenced in March.
