’She set me up’: accused

A BRIDGEWATER man accused of holding up his local United service station at knifepoint claims he was being framed by a woman who was buying a pie from the same store.

Caleb Anthony Paul Woods, 26, faced a Supreme

Court of Tasmania jury on Tuesday for the beginning of an expected three-day trial after pleading not guilty to one count of armed robbery.

Mr Woods is accused of wearing a white hoodie that obscured his face in the service station in October 2018, producing a knife, telling the attendant “this is a f---ing holdup”, and demanding the attendant hand over all the money in his till.

Crown prosecutor Jane Ansell said a woman was in the store buying a pie when a man she knew as “Woodsy” walked in and held-up the attendant.

“She thought it was all a joke,” Ms Ansell said.

“She knows Woodsy from around Bridgewater.”

By contrast, Mr Woods says he was in the area that night but he didn’t hold up the service station and that the woman buying the pie “set him up”.

Ms Ansell said a police officer saw Mr Woods on the Jordan River Bridge that night carrying a screwdriver tucked into his belt, and that officers later searched his home and found a knife and a pair of shoes that seemed to match those in the CCTV footage.

Ms Ansell also said police obtained a phone conversation between Mr Woods and his partner some six months after the robbery during which he allegedly said the words: “when I did the robbery at the servo”.

Defence barrister Todd Kovacic told the jury “there’s a lot to be troubled by” in the CCTV footage and that the evidence against Mr Woods was circumstantial – “and it doesn’t quite get you there”.

“It was actually [the woman] who was part of this incident and she’s dropped him in it,” he said.

The trial, before Justice Stephen Estcourt, continues.