A man has been jailed for five years and two months for a string of commercial robberies including a Brooklyn break-in where he ripped a hole in the building’s rear wall using a tow rope and his car.
Shelton Jay Blunt pleaded guilty in the County Court to charges of theft, attempted theft, burglary, armed robbery, aggravated burglary, obtaining financial advantage and obtaining property by deception.
A sentencing hearing heard last month the 43-year-old began his crime spree by stealing a car last October 14. He then robbed a Bras N Things store at the Airport West shopping centre just after 9am on October 31, threatening the 19-year-old shop attendant with a 30- centimetre knife.
“I will f—ing stab you,” he told her during the ordeal. Blunt made her lie down on the floor before leaving with an undisclosed amount of money. He then burgled a business in Braybrook on January 20, 2016.
Later that month, on January 31, he stole money from a Footscray burger shop then $2000 from a Totally Workwear store in Brooklyn after gaining access via the rear of the store.
The court heard Blunt connected a tow rope from a metal grille at the rear of the store to his car. After dislodging the grille, he crept through the hole in the wall to steal the money.
Justice John Smallwood sentenced Blunt, who had a reported IQ of 55, with a heavy heart.
“I personally find these sentencing tasks very, very difficult through a very large degree of sympathy and understanding for the plight in which you, as a man in your forties, find yourself,” he said.
“However, a significant gaol sentence in this situation is, objectively, simply inevitable.”
Blunt will be eligible for parole in two years and seven months.
