A tradesman has been jailed for 6.5 years for breaking into a convicted paedophile’s outback home along with a NSW cop and robbing him of $100,000.
The police officer, who was hailed as a vigilante hero by locals on social media after the robbery of the 78-year-old child sex offender, was jailed for 10 years in November over the heist.
The pair, who cannot be named due to a suppression order, drove 780km from the Illawarra region to the remote town of Lightning Ridge in October 2024, broke into the predator’s home wearing balaclavas, tied him up, threatened to harm him if he didn’t hand over his safe keys, and made off with the cash inside.
The tradesman, aged in his 50s and given the pseudonym MB, appeared in the NSW District Court on Friday after previously pleading guilty to aggravated break and enter, and was sentenced to 6.5 years jail with a non-parole period of three years and 10 months, ABC News reported.
Judge Robert Newlinds noted that the police officer, known as MA, did most of the planning and committed most of the acts of violence, and the court heard he exploited knowledge of the cash in the safe that he gained from a 2020 search that led to the paedophile being charged and convicted of a child sex offence.
The court heard MB was susceptible to being influenced by the officer due to ADHD and trauma-related disorders, but Judge Newlinds said MB had plenty of time to change his mind about being involved during the long drive to opal-mining town.
The judge accepted MB was unlikely to reoffend and had apologised in letters to the court, but said he should have known better.
“As a self-employed tradie, [MB] would have been very conscious of how bad it is to rob other people of their things,” he said.
The court heard the pair borrowed a car, filled jerry cans with fuel and left their mobile phones behind to avoid detection, and after tying the victim up MB told him: “If you don’t give us the key … we’ll chuck you in the car and take you out to the dam.”
In sentencing MA, who also pleaded guilty to aggravated break and enter, Judge Newlinds condemned the officer for misusing his professional knowledge to commit the crime, and for the effect the social media response to the robbery had on the child sex offender.
“Use of private information gathered by the process of search warrants for anything other than proper purposes connected to the administration of justice is entirely unacceptable and must be deplored,” he said at the time.
“I consider the consequences to the victim to be extraordinary and over and above what might be considered usual or expected.
“The victim had served his time for his crime and was entitled to be left alone to live his life without being bashed and robbed by a police officer involved in investigating his crime. Let alone, members of the public vilifying the victim and praising the offender.”
Judge Newlinds also described as “tenuous” MA’s claims of a link between the crime and his PTSD from being exposed to horrific crimes and accidents during his work, but accepted he had shown some remorse, was previously of good character, and had an underlying mental health condition.
MA was given a non-parole period of six years, and ordered to pay back most of the stolen finds, while MB is required to pay the victim $19,000.
Header image: Left, the tradesman (ABC News). Right, the paedophile’s injured hand from being tied up (supplied).
