A Wagga man will spend at least three years in prison after he robbed two taxi drivers at knifepoint, telling one, "give me your wallet or I will stab you".
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Alex Steven Bartholomew, 24, appeared at Wagga District Court for sentencing on Friday morning after pleading guilty to two counts of robbery armed with an offensive weapon.
On the night of September 7 last year, Bartholomew sat in the front seat of a cab parked on Lake Albert Road and pulled out a knife, telling the driver, "give me all your money".
He soon made away with $245 cash, the driver's wallet and licence.
Then, just two days later, Bartholomew got into a cab at the Kooringal Mall taxi rank and, after a short drive, told the cabbie to pull over.
During the robbery, Bartholomew told the driver, "give me your wallet or I will stab you", before getting away with $220. He was arrested later that day.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Gordon Lerve said Bartholomew committed the offences within the first week of parole for an armed robbery in company and that he has a "substantial criminal history".
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"There was some limited degree of planning in both matters," he said.
"There was no actual violence, but there was a very real threat of violence with the production of the knife."
During a sentencing hearing earlier this year, Bartholomew admitted the victims would have been scared, and he felt terrible for what he had done.
Upon being released from parole in 2020, Bartholomew had hoped to stay with family in Wagga, but it soon became apparent that was not an option.
Community Corrections offered emergency accommodation, but it was outside central Wagga.
Bartholomew thought he would end up back in jail and "gave up then and there".
"In jail, no one gives me shit because no one expects anything of you," he said at the hearing.
"When I am out, everything is too hard, and I feel like I don't have any support to stay out."
Judge Lerve took into account Bartholomew's age, his difficult upbringing, including homelessness and an addiction to ice at the age of 15, and the seriousness of the offences.
Bartholomew was given a combined sentence of five years and three months, with a non-parole period of three years and four months.
This has been backdated to begin on March 10, 2021.
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