A man who broke into a Bendigo home while an 18-year-old woman was there alone will be sentenced in the County Court after a magistrate determined the higher court was the appropriate jurisdiction for the crime.
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Leigh Jade Broome, 30, pleaded guilty in the Bendigo Magistrates' Court this week to aggravated burglary, theft, handling stolen goods and obtaining property by deception, in relation to offending last year.
Defence lawyer Tass Antos made an application for the matter to be dealt with in the Magistrates' Court, but prosecutor Charlotte Duckett opposed it on the basis of the aggravated burglary.
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The court heard the victim was home alone in the house she shared with her mother on the evening of October 22 last year.
While in the bathroom, she heard movements in the house and called her mother to see if she had returned home, as she had left to spend the night with her boyfriend.
Her mother told her to hang up and call police.
The young woman locked herself in the bathroom and heard more than one person walking in the house, as well as more than one male voice.
She also heard a person say outside the bathroom door, "Stay there".
The mother and her boyfriend later arrived and saw a television had been moved to the front verandah of the home, and an esky had been moved.
The front door was also open and through it they saw the back door close.
The mother's boyfriend ran to the side gate and saw the accused jump over the fence.
He followed and confronted Broome in the neighbour's yard, where Broome dropped a phone taken from the house.
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The boyfriend held Broome there until police arrived.
Broome told police he went to the address with an unnamed person, and admitted he saw a car in the driveway and believed someone was home.
But while he said he had lifted a flyscreen on a window, he had not entered the house.
Broome's fingerprints were found on the television.
He told police he and the unnamed person had gone to the home to find money for drugs.
Ms Duckett told the court the victims moved out of the home because the young woman no longer felt safe there.
Broome was on a community corrections order at the time of the aggravated burglary, she said, and had prior convictions for burglary, theft and deception matters.
She said he also had a history of failing to comply with court orders.
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He committed his other offences - which included stealing liquor from a bottle shop and using stolen bank cards to buy food, cigarettes and taxi fares - in June and July of the same year.
Mr Antos submitted the Magistrates' Court had enough sentencing power to deal with his client's matter, as it could impose a sentence of up to two years for a single offence, or five years for multiple offences.
Given Broome's age and history, he said, the court could impose an adequate sentence through a term of imprisonment.
But Ms Duckett argued the aggravated burglary was serious enough to warrant sentencing in a higher court.
She submitted two years would be a low sentence for an offender with his background, for an incident in which the victim was left hiding in the bathroom.
Magistrate Michael King said he considered the offending to be mid-range for aggravated burglary, and determined the County Court was the appropriate court to sentence Broome.
Broome will again appear in court on April 29.
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