Christmas incentive for robber
A DRUG-addicted former concreter who hadn’t slept for days before holding up a Cairns takeaway store with a knife may be let out of jail in time for Christmas.
Mitchell James Noe, 31, pointed a 15cm knife at the 21-year-old female employee and demanded cash at the Subway eatery in Earlville on January 24.
The Cairns District Court heard the father of one waited in the Mulgrave Road business until other customers left before the holdup and fled with $350.
Defence barrister Melia Benn told the court her client was a long-time drug user who had consumed ice and cannabis on the morning of the holdup.
“There was no disguise, it was the middle of the day,” she said. “It was not for any good reason than to get drugs and pay back a debt.”
The court heard Noe was a career criminal with many prior convictions for fraud, shoplifting, violence, property and bail-breach offences.
Judge Dean Morzone said these were “indicative of a reckless and out-of-control lifestyle” and if Noe could stay clean his risk of reoffending was low.
However, Judge Morzone rated the risk to the public as “medium to high” if he began using again.
Noe, who pleaded guilty to armed robbery and wrote letters of apology to the victim and the court, said via video link from jail that he was desperate to turn his life around.
“I never set up a support network last time (I was released from jail) and I recognise that is where I failed,” he said.
Ms Benn said Noe’s sevenyear-old daughter was now in the custody of his parents, but Noe was desperate to clean up his act and would go straight from jail into a rehabilitation centre.
She said following his most recent jail release last year, he moved into a halfway house in Cairns where “everyone in that household was a user”.
“He just wasn’t strong enough, nor did he have the support to stay away (from drugs),” she said.
She said he had ambitions to become a drug counsellor and be “part of the solution rather than the problem”.
He has served 213 days in custody since the incident.
Judge Morzone sentenced him to three years’ jail with parole release on December 24. “(This will be) a timely Christmas present for your daughter to see a healthy, clean, ready-for-life father,” he said. “I wish you all the best.”