CARJACK TERROR
A WOMAN who brandished a kitchen knife in a horrifying taxi carjacking only hours later helped to steal an innocent man’s car.
Allison Anne Symons, 21, was with her partner, Jake Whyte, when the pair caught a taxi from Charters Towers Road on April last year.
The duo requested the taxi driver drop them at the end of Pallarenda.
The Townsville District Court heard Symons swung the knife at his torso.
A WOMAN who brandished a kitchen knife in a horrifying taxi carjacking only hours later helped to steal an innocent man’s car.
Allison Anne Symons, 21, was with her partner, Jake Whyte, when the pair caught a taxi from Charters Towers Road on April 12 last year.
The duo requested the taxi driver drop them at the end of Pallarenda.
The Townsville District Court heard Symons threatened the driver with a kitchen knife before swinging the kitchen knife at his torso in an unsuccessful attempt to stab him.
Whyte then punched the taxi driver in the face before the pair left him on the side of the road, driving off in the vehicle, the court heard.
Twenty minutes later, the court heard that the cab was abandoned at Jezzine Barracks.
Crown prosecutor Aaron Dunkerton told the court that later that evening, Whyte and Symons stole a car from a man who had parked outside a gym.
The stolen Mitsubishi Lancer was found a short time later abandoned at Cranbrook, the court heard.
Symon’s charges follow offending in late 2018 and early 2019. That offending included possession of methamphetamines and stealing fuel as well as stealing a taxi on April 3 last year.
Symons pleaded guilty to a total of nine charges including armed robbery in company with personal violence and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.
Defence barrister Harvey Walters told the court that his client was a mother to an 18month-old son and that she had been subjected to an abusive childhood and relationship.
“She has come from a background of an incarcerated father and an alcoholic mother and when the system has tried to do their best she has been abused by the people who were there to help her,” he said.
“My client has been in an on-and-off-again relationship with Whyte since she was 15 years of age and it has been a controlling relationship.”
Mr Walters presented to the court two letters of apology from Symons that were addressed to the court and her victims.
Judge John Coker sympathised with Symons’s “tragic” past and accepted her “genuine” apology but condemned her behaviour.
“Most concerning is much of the offending involving taxi drivers, stealing from service stations and liquor stores; (this) is stealing from people who are going about their lawful business,” Judge Coker said.
Judge Coker declared 453 days as time spent in pre-sentence custody and sentenced Symons to 3½ years’ jail with immediate parole eligibility.