Pharmacy robber’s appeal dismissed

A NSW man will serve out the remaining 14 months of the nonparole period on his jail sentence for an armed robbery at a South Hurstville Pharmacy.

Tony Karacic’s appeal against the severity of his six years and three months sentence, was rejected by the Supreme Court of NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Mon.

Karacic was found guilty of robbing cash and prescription medicines from the pharmacy, after confronting a 20-yearold pharmacy assistant (PA) and demanding access to the medicines safe before going into the dispensary, where the PA told the pharmacist to “open the safe, he had a gun”.

On 11 Feb 2016 the offender was stopped by police while driving and the gun used in the robbery was found under the driver’s seat of his car.

Karacic was sentenced to a six-month non-parole period for charges relating to the possession of an unlicensed firearm, on 07 Jun 2016, before the District Court of NSW handed down a separate six-year and three-months sentence for the pharmacy robbery on 17 Nov 2017, with the sentence starting from 12 Oct 2016.

Karacic challenged the severity of the sentence, claiming the prison terms should have run concurrently as the charges for possession of a firearm and the robbery were connected.

However, the Supreme Court of NSW ruled that the two cases were separate, adding the “crimes were serious, involving as they did the use of a functional firearm to hold up pharmacy staff so that drugs could be taken,” and “the sentence imposed was...very much towards the lower end of the available sentencing range, it could not be characterised as manifestly excessive”.