A Wagga man will spend the better part of three years in jail after he held up a local service station while armed with a knife.
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Alex Steven Bartholomew, 20, entered the Kooringal Road Caltex with his unknown co-offender on July 29 last year and took as much as $500 in cash from the till.
According to documents tendered to the court, the service station attendant working that night went outside to start cleaning up.
As he walked back inside, Bartholomew and his co-offender followed him in with their faces covered and knives in their hands.
Bartholomew placed a backpack on the counter and demanded the employee empty the contents of the cash register into his bag.
“The victim opened the till and emptied all the notes from the till, placing them into the bag,” the documents read.
“The offender, at this stage, was holding a black-handled knife in his right hand, which was held down at his side.”
Both offenders then quickly fled the scene.
Bartholomew was ultimately caught by police after they executed a search warrant at his Kooringal home on August 31 last year and found a backpack and some clothes matching those seen on the CCTV footage of the incident.
On Thursday, Wagga’s District Court heard of Bartholomew’s lengthy criminal history leading up to the July armed robbery.
Bartholomew was on nine separate good behaviour bonds at the time of the robbery for offences including assault, shoplifting, and three counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
He had also just been released from jail on parole less than three weeks before the armed robbery for committing break, enter, and steal.
Judge Gordon Lerve sentenced Bartholomew to four years and three months’ jail with a non-parole period of two years and nine months.
Given that he has been in custody since December for his part in the armed robbery, he will be eligible for parole in September, 2020.
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