A terrified shop manager quit his job just days after staring down the barrel of a gun during an early morning robbery that netted the perpetrator barely $600, the Supreme Court has heard.
Phillip Bradley Harris, 50, will spend the next four years behind bars after a jury determined he was the masked man who entered the Ravenswood newsagent and post office on November 11, 2022.
The entire minute-long ordeal was captured on CCTV, showing a hooded figure confronting the store manager while armed with what appeared to be a rifle fitted with a telescopic sight.
Harris aimed the gun directly at the worker, aggressively demanding cash before making off with between $500 and $600 from the till.
Justice Robert Pearce in his passing comments said armed robberies can have a serious mental toll on innocent victims.
“They are frequently traumatised and suffer from long term psychological symptoms,” he said, adding that the worker resigned “two weeks later largely as a result of the robbery and the fear and anxiety it caused”.
“Armed robbery has long been treated by the courts as a very serious crime for a number of reasons, and robberies involving the use of firearms are regarded as especially serious.”
The court heard that Harris had admitted the crime to his former partner but claimed he was forced into it after being “bashed and held hostage” by men to whom he owed drug money.
However, CCTV footage contradicted his claim, showing Harris with two accomplices both before and after the robbery, later dividing the stolen money among them.
“Even if it were the case that you committed this robbery as a result of threats of violence arising from a drug debt, I do not regard it as a mitigating factor of any weight,” Justice Pearce said.
“Those who get themselves into a position in which they face threats, even serious threats, arising from a debt for drugs cannot resort to crimes as serious as this, with all of the damage that it may do to others, as a means of escaping their situation.”
Harris, a father of seven who does not have custody of his children, has a criminal history and has previously served short prison terms.
His four-year sentence was backdated to August 8, 2024, taking into account the 201 days he had already spent in custody.
He will be eligible for parole after serving two years.
