An aspiring beautician refused bail for six months on allegations she helped an Illawarra man avoid police capture on a murder charge will not spend any more time behind bars, after a judge found it would be "unnecessarily cruel" to return her to custody.
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Mother-of-one Mariah Powell confessed to helping Darren Butler hide from police in the days after his involvement in a fatal fuel tanker crash at Albion Park Rail in May last year by providing him with a vehicle, which she helped deliver to him in Victoria, then acting as a "courier" to deliver letters from Butler to his family.
She told Wollongong District Court on Friday she had acted out of misguided loyalty to Butler, her former lover, after he told he was wanted by police for murder.
"My first instinct was to protect him out of love and stand by him out of loyalty," she said.
"I'm sincerely sorry for my actions, I didn't think it through what I was doing."
Powell was one of four people who Butler enlisted to help him avoid police detection in the days after father-of-seven Daniel Merrett was killed on May 18 when the Ford Territory he was a passenger in collided with a petrol tanker on the Princes Highway.
It is alleged the Territory was being chased at the time by a silver Toyota Corolla being driven by Butler and containing co-accused Andrew Russell and Holly Green.
Butler, Russell and Green allegedly fled the crash site and went on the run, with Butler asking his former girlfriend Maddison Day, current girlfriend Holly Powers, close friend Matthew Ryan and Powell to help him dodge the police, who had issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.
(Butler's charge has since been downgraded to manslaughter. He and Russell are due to face trial next year).
The court heard Powell tried to facilitate the transfer of an allegedly stolen Nissan Navara into Butler's name, then accompanied another man to Victoria to deliver a van to Butler so he had transport while on the run.
Butler later used that vehicle to return to NSW.
Meanwhile, Powell was also returning home in a different vehicle when she was stopped by police, who found her in possession of hand-written letters from Butler and Green to their respective families.
Powell was arrested and charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder. She was remanded in custody for six months before being granted bail in February this year.
Powell pleaded guilty in April to a lesser charge of hindering the apprehension of a person who committed a serious offence in a plea deal with prosecutors.
In court on Friday, defence barrister Nancy Mikhaiel said Powell had a young autistic son with profound special needs and suffered from her own significant mental health problems including major depression and anxiety.
She said Powell had been bashed in custody and was terrified of returning to prison and being away from her son, who was currently being cared for by his father.
"Jail was my hell, I did not cope," Powell wrote in her apology letter to the court.
Judge Andrew Haesler agreed to spare Powell further jail time, noting she was in a particularly vulnerable state at the time.
He set a non-parole period of six months, which was backdated to include the time she'd already spent behind bars.
She will spend the next 19 months on parole.