A man is facing more than four years in prison, after he used pepper spray and held a knife to another man's throat in a carjacking at Crusoe Reservoir in Kangaroo Flat.
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Cody Brooks, 24, was sentenced in the County Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to aggravated carjacking, two charges of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, dangerous driving while pursued by police, theft, and handling stolen goods.
On the morning of March 25 last year, Brooks messaged the victim and asked for a lift.
That same day, he messaged another person, said he needed a car, and asked if there was anyone they did not like so he could "roll" them.
He said he knew how he was going to do it.
Just after 2pm, the victim, with two passengers in his car, picked up Brooks in Strathdale.
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Brooks asked the victim to drive him to a playground to meet someone, but a couple of minutes after they arrived, Brooks said he would meet them at the Crusoe Reservoir car park.
After they arrived at the reservoir, Brooks sprayed pepper spray in the vehicle and held what was described as a large hunting knife to the victim's throat.
Brooks told the victim and the other passengers to get out, then drove the car away.
That same afternoon, Brooks filled the vehicle with almost $38 of petrol at a Kennington petrol station and drove away without paying.
Two days later, police saw the victim's stolen vehicle and Lyttleton Terrace and began following it.
When the vehicle turned onto Myers Street police activated their flashing lights, but Brooks accelerated, sped through a red light and drove dangerously through the heavy traffic.
Police stopped following.
Later that week, police found Brooks in the backyard of a Kennington property.
The stolen vehicle was also at the address and bore stolen number plates.
Police seized Brooks' mobile phone and found photos of him taken the previous month, holding a double-barrelled shotgun and a sawn-off rifle.
At the time of his offending, Brooks was on a community corrections order.
Judge Mandy Fox said the use of the pepper spray and knife, and the pre-planning, were aggravating features of the carjacking, although the victim was not injured and the incident was short-lived.
The firearms offences were relatively minor examples of those crimes, she said.
But Judge Fox said Brooks placed other people at risk with his driving on busy Myers Street.
"Accelerating through a red light is a very dangerous thing to do," she said.
Judge Fox said Brooks' background was "fairly described as one of trauma and disadvantage", and relevant to sentencing.
He was witness to and the victim of family violence growing up, and began using drugs at a young age - by his early teens, he was smoking ice with his parents.
Judge Fox said a person with such an upbringing was not an appropriate vehicle to send a message to other potential offenders.
She said Brooks' offending on this occasion appeared largely to be the result of his drug use and lifestyle at the time, as he was homeless and using multiple illicit substances.
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Brooks' depression would make prison harder for him, she said, and he was likely to be vulnerable in adult custody.
Judge Fox said Brooks' guilty plea was valuable, and he had expressed remorse for his crimes.
But she said his prospects of rehabilitation were "quite poor" and he would need "considerable assistance" in the community once released from custody.
Judge Fox sentenced Brooks to four years and two months' imprisonment.
He must serve three years before he is eligible for parole, and at the time of sentencing, had already served 494 days of his sentence.
Brooks' licence was also cancelled and he was disqualified from driving for 12 months.
If it were not for his guilty plea, Brooks would have spent at least four and a half years in prison, with a maximum term of six years and three months.