A woman who stole TVs from a Harvey Norman loading dock with her partner, attacked another jail inmate and scratched a woman with a syringe has learnt her sentence.
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Carlee Smedley, 42, faced Wollongong Local Court where she pleaded guilty to numerous offences stemming from seven separate incidents.
Magistrate Claire Girotto said her crimes against a taxi driver were of particular concern, as was an assault in custody.
"This fellow was just trying to do his job and he gave you the benefit of the doubt... You just lost control," Magistrate Girotto said.
On the afternoon of November 5 last year, Smedley took a taxi from Lake Illawarra to Matthews Crescent in Port Kembla and offered her phone as security as she did not have the means to pay the driver until they reached the destination.
But comments from the driver about fare evasion in the Matthews Crescent area angered Smedley, and during the drive she mistakenly thought the driver's ringing phone was her own.
She demanded her phone back but the driver refused to hand it over until she paid, so she grabbed the driver's new packet of Winfield Gold cigarettes from the console.
Smedley grew increasingly aggressive so the driver activated his duress alarm, requested police and began driving to a taxi rank to get help from other drivers.
Smedley asked where he was going then took off her seatbelt and leaned across him, trying to grab her phone.
This left the driver unable to see the road while he was driving, and in the struggle Smedley ripped his shirt pocket and broke his reading glasses.
Then on June 24, while she was an inmate at Dillwynia Women's Correctional Centre, Smedley got into an altercation with another inmate.
When the victim went to walk away Smedley shoved her, punched her in the back of the head five times, then again punched her in the face and neck several times before other inmates broke them up.
It was not the only violent incident Smedley admitted to: earlier this year, in a domestic violence-related incident, she pulled a woman's hair while holding two syringes, one of which the victim believed scratched her shoulder.
Smedley was also involved in shoplifting offences with her partner Grant Petersen, first in October last year from Coles in Warrawong and on two occasions in March this year from Kmart in Figtree.
Then in May the pair stole four TVs from the loading dock of Harvey Norman in Warrawong, but were tracked back to Smedley's unit by GPS because they used a hired ute to carry out the crime.
Smedley pleaded guilty to stealing, two counts of common assault, interfering with a driver's control of a vehicle, not wearing a seatbelt, two counts of larceny, three counts of shoplifting, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Defence lawyer Aaron Kernaghan said his client's record involved low-level offending.
Mr Kernaghan told the court Smedley had been subjected to domestic violence and had not had the support to "keep her on the straight and narrow when she most needed it".
He asked the court to consider a sentence that would give her support and allow for her immediate release from custody.
Smedley told the court she had been clean from drugs for 11 weeks, something she was "really proud of".
Magistrate Girotto said she appreciated that Smedley had come from a background of domestic violence and spiralled.
She sentenced Smedley to a term of imprisonment, to be served in the community through a 12-month intensive corrections order.
This will involve supervision and rehabilitation.
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Natalie Croxon
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate. Our Watch award winner.
