Jasmin Parker went on a robbery spree with her mother. Photo: Facebook.
A mother with a $150-a-day heroin habit and her knife-wielding daughter have been sentenced after they went on a robbery spree in Canberra.
The ACT Supreme Court judgement for Crystal Parker, released last year, says on 20 May 2019, she and her daughter Jasmin Parker went to a private hospital where Jasmin followed a staff member into an office and demanded money while brandishing a knife.
Later that same evening, they went to a supermarket in Braddon where Jasmin again used a knife to demand money and threatened to stab the storekeeper if she screamed.
Crystal opened the cash register and took $1590 while Jasmin took a can of premixed alcohol before they ran off.
On 23 July, the mother and daughter went to another supermarket in Braddon where Jasmin asked for the storekeeper’s help at the back of the shop while Crystal stole $450 from the till.
The storekeeper saw the till was empty and tried to follow them when they started to run away, but Jasmin said “Don’t move, I have a knife”.
A storekeeper from across the road then ran after them, but also stopped when Jasmin pulled out a knife and said “Stop”.
Crystal, a former disability support worker, pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated robbery and of two counts of aggravated robbery. She was 38-years-old when she appeared in the ACT Supreme Court for sentencing in February 2020.
She received 36 months’ jail after taking into account 132 days already spent in custody, with her sentence suspended for the completion of a 12-month Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order followed by a good behaviour order for the rest of her sentence.
Her judgement states she had become addicted to heroin, a habit which at the time of the robberies cost her about $150 a day. After her arrest she told police her daughter was the co-offender.
Jasmin, who was 20 years old at the time of Crystal’s sentencing, pleaded guilty to the same charges as her mother.
She appeared in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday (18 March). Her lawyer told the court she had not had contact with her mother who had influenced her offending.
Justice John Burns said while he noted Jasmin’s early guilty plea, since he had deferred her sentencing from last year there had been “some bumps along the way”.
“But generally the result of the deferred sentence orders I have imposed over the last 13 months has been positive,” he said.
He said Crystal was much older than Jasmin and was a person who could be expected to have some degree of influence over her.
Justice Burns sentenced Jasmin to about 21 months’ jail, but suspended it for a two-year good behaviour order that will expire in March 2023, warning her that she still had a lengthy term of imprisonment hanging over her head.
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