‘Armed robber’ wanted to go to jail

IN A CRIME the sentencing judge referred to as “bizarre”, a 30-year-old man walked into a Toowoomba carpet and rug store to commit an armed robbery for no other reason than he wanted to get himself locked up.

Luke Anthony Cale had approached two employees of Cyrus Persian Carpets and Rugs in Ruthven St on June 22, last year, saying, though he didn’t want to, he was going to commit an armed robbery on the store, Toowoomba District Court heard.

He wasn’t armed at all, but had taken the sunglasses off his head and placed them in his coat pocket to make it appear so.

One of the store’s workers explained that they had no cash on the premises and told him that there was a CCTV camera on him, before asking him to leave, Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald told the court.

Cale then replied that he was feeling unwell and asked the employees to call him an ambulance, adding that he just wanted to go to jail.

He got his wish and spent the ensuing 244 days in custody before appearing in court to plead guilty to a charge of entering a premises with intent to commit an indictable offence.

Ms Friedewald said Cale had relatively minor criminal history in Victoria and Queensland and nothing of a like nature in his history.

“Clearly at the time there were some underlying mental health issues, and this was more a cry for help,” she submitted.

Defence barrister David Jones agreed that his client’s actions had come from a cry for help.

The 30-year-old had come to Toowoomba with all of his possessions in a backpack and had lived on the streets for a couple of weeks leading up to the incident.

His client had a history of occasional mental health issues and had spent time in hospital after breaking down in the past, he said.

At the time, Cale had been feeling anxious and was selfmedicating with alcohol.

He was eventually locked up and spent a night in the watch house where he was seen by a mental health nurse who gave him medication which made him feel better.

However, when released he was struggling again and committed the offence in order to get locked up again so he could deal with his anxiety, Mr Jones told the court.

Mr Jones said he and his instructing solicitor had concerns for their client upon his release, but he claimed he had applied to Centrelink for some crisis payment so he could get a room for the weekend before moving to Ipswich where he had a sister.

Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren SC sentenced Cale to the 244 days he had already served and released him.