A young Illawarra father will spend up to seven-and-a-half years behind bars after confessing to carrying out his third public place shooting in four years.
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Matthew McGarrigle was jailed for three years in 2018 over two drive-by shootings that took place at Penrose and Koonawarra in early 2017.
He was released on parole in February 2020, but took less than two months to return to his old ways.
Wollongong District Court heard on Friday how McGarrigle and another man, Benjamin Pratt, confronted a man inside the stairwell of an apartment block on Market Street in Wollongong on March 23 - McGarrigle armed with a gun and Pratt holding a mallet.
The two men accosted the victim, who kept asking the pair who they were and what they wanted.
McGarrigle and Pratt yelled at the man to enter a nearby unit, however he told them "I don't live here and I don't have the keys".
The duo made the victim sit at the top of the stairs and hit him with their weapons, prompting the victim to throw bottles of soft drink he'd been carrying in their direction.
Pratt ran back downstairs, however McGarrigle turned and fired upon the man. The bullet struck the victim in the knee.
McGarrigle and Pratt fled the scene, while the victim sought help from a friend in a nearby unit.
He was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery to have the bullet removed.
McGarrigle was arrested in June last year and Pratt in September.
Pratt has since been sentenced to 20 months behind bars after pleading guilty to being armed with intent to commit a serious indictable offence.
Meanwhile, McGarrigle was remanded in custody and subsequently pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, being armed with intent and possessing a shortened firearm.
In court on Friday, Judge Andrew Haesler said McGarrigle, now 22, had spent his entire adulthood in jail, bar the few months he was on parole.
He recalled sentencing McGarrigle over the 2017 shootings and warning him that if he did not change his criminal associations, he would end up spending years of his life behind bars.
"It causes me some distress that my prediction was correct," he said.
The court heard McGarrigle had been a long-time drug user in his teens and had begun taking methylamphetamine within weeks of his release on parole in February 2020.
He was high on ice and hadn't slept for two days when he carried out the shooting. He later told a psychologist he thought he was enforcing a debt, however there was no evidence of the victim owing anything to McGarrigle or Pratt.
Meanwhile, Judge Haesler read from a poignant letter penned by McGarrigle's father, in which he said he hoped his son had committed his last offence.
"I pray to god I'm still around to see my son turn his life around and head in the right direction," Steven McGarrigle wrote.
Judge Haesler sentenced McGarrigle to an overall jail term of seven years and six months and set a non-parole period of four years and three months.
With time served, McGarrigle will be eligible to apply for parole in March 2025.
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