A not-so-wise armed bandit was strong enough to break into an Albion Park service station by kicking a hole through its gyprock wall, before making off with over $7000 worth in cigarettes.
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But he wasn't smart enough to keep the beanie he was wearing at the time secured to his head.
After Kevin Leslie Henry and his unknown co-accused crawled through the wall they kicked in at Caltex Service Station in Albion Park Rail in April this year, Henry used a yellow screwdriver to force open a safe behind the counter.
The pair then piled 167 packets of cigarettes into a tub, before crawling back out through the hole they made, according to agreed facts tendered to Wollongong Local Court.
But Henry left behind an important piece of evidence. After an alarm was triggered and police were alerted of an incident, they found Henry's beanie stuck to the plaster wall at the point of entry.
His DNA profile was found on the inside of the beanie, with the pair also caught on CCTV crawling on the floor of the shop and entering it by squeezing between two fridges.
CCTV footage also showed a small white sedan driving past shortly after the heist, which was registered in Henry's girlfriend's name.
In the early hours of the morning on April 13, Henry and another unknown co-accused also robbed Enhance Service Station in Gerringong.
Henry was masked and wielding a crowbar when he ran into the shop while a worker was counting the till.
The worker tried to move away from the till and crouched down on the ground and said "take the cash from the drawers, it's open".
The robbers took the cash drawer with $1280 in it, as well as four cartons of cigarettes totalling $1137, and fled from the servo.
Police were called immediately after, and nearby highway patrol found the cash till abandoned on the road in the northbound lane of Kiama Bends, court documents say.
Officers also found clothes dumped on the road at Belinda Street, Gerringong, which matched what Henry and his accomplice were wearing on CCTV footage.
His DNA was also detected on the clothes.
On April 29 last year, police raided Henry's Albion Park home while he wasn't there on a search warrant.
They found clothes he was wearing at the time of the robberies, as well as the yellow screwdriver.
Further evidence was linked to one of Henry's co-accused who police found with the stolen cigarettes.
He was arrested on May 13 when police returned to his address.
In court on Wednesday, Henry appeared via video link while his lawyer Laura Fennell entered guilty pleas to armed robbery and aggravated break, enter and steal on his behalf.
Magistrate Claire Girotto adjourned the case to November 18 for sentence.
Read more Illawarra court and crime stories here.
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Grace Crivellaro
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
