An Illawarra man who helped two friends break into a Dapto house and threaten three females with hammers will learn his fate on Friday.
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Brendan Ronald Halsey will return to court to hear his punishment for the violent home invasion after presiding judge Paul Conlon said during a court sitting on Thursday that he needed the night to consider an appropriate sentence for Halsey.
Halsey's co-offenders, Michael Manton and Andrew Keith Francis Coe, also appeared in court on Thursday but will not be sentenced until October.
The court heard the plan to commit the crime came about after Coe phoned a friend at 6.17 on the morning of June 5 last year, saying he needed a way to get money.
The woman to whom he was speaking told him: "Go do a home invasion on the highway . . . [the victims'] house . . . it's five years' [jail] on the bottom, you will be right".
Less than 45 minutes later, Coe, Manton and Halsey, armed with hammers, smashed a window to gain entry into the Princes Highway house.
They demanded the three female occupants - sisters aged 20, 16 and 13 - reveal where their mother kept her "money and drugs".
The men ransacked the home then stole iPads and mobile phones and fled.
Coe will also be sentenced for carrying out a second break and enter later the same day in Horsley, where $80,000 worth of goods was stolen including a Nissan Navara.
In court on Thursday, Judge Conlon was told Manton and Coe, both 23, had extensive criminal records and had been in jail most of their adult lives.
Halsey said he planned to move out of the Illawarra when released from prison in order to distance himself from his old associates.