Connor Manns gets years in jail for burglary, robbery and drive-by shooting

A man who was found guilty of a drive-by shooting has been sentenced for his role in a string of crimes from 2021, including that shooting, a violent burglary where a gun was fired into a family’s home and the robbery of a teenage boy.

Connor John Manns was handed about seven years and two months’ jail by the ACT Supreme Court late last year, his published sentencing remarks say.

First, he and a co-offender tried to force their way into a home in Bonner on the afternoon of 27 June 2021 where a man was living with his partner and their three young children.

The man armed himself with a kitchen knife and held the door closed as they tried to break through it while Manns laughed and made comments like, “Let’s go c–t”.

When one of the man’s children appeared and asked what was happening, his partner told the child to run and hide.

The co-offender then fired a gun through the door and the bullet grazed the man’s leg, causing him to bleed. The intruders fled soon afterwards.

“No matter what you are sentenced to today, you should consider yourself blessed,” the man wrote in a statement for the court.

“One small change during your despicable crime against my family and you could have killed me, or worse, one of my children.”

Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson did note it was the unidentified co-offender who used the gun, not Manns.

Next, the then-23-year-old Manns helped others plan a robbery on 27 July 2021 where a teenager was lured to a location under the pretence of selling him cannabis and stole $450 from him.

For the last offence, he had gotten into an argument with a woman and her partner, during which the partner challenged him to a fistfight.

In the early hours of 21 November 2021, the partner was walking along the street in Casey to the meeting when Manns, driving a Volkswagen Golf, spotted him.

While still driving, Manns fired two shots out the window from a .25 calibre pistol. The partner hid behind a tree while Manns made a U-turn, drove back and fired a third shot. None of the bullets hit him.

Manns pleaded guilty to charges that included aggravated burglary, recklessly inflicting actual bodily harm and aggravated robbery, all by joint commission, as well as to a charge of using a carriage service to make a threat to cause serious harm.

He had been acquitted of a charge of attempted murder over the drive-by in a trial last year but was found guilty of attempting to intentionally inflict grievous bodily harm.

Justice Loukas-Karlsson was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that all three shots were aimed at the partner during the drive-by, and she would sentence Manns on the basis that only one shot was fired with the intention of inflicting harm.

Manns, a father-of-one who says he was born in the town of Bega and most recently worked in the traffic control industry on the NSW South Coast, has been in custody since his arrest in November 2022.

Regarding the charges he was to be sentenced for, he said he had returned to Canberra and fallen “back into a bad crowd”. He also said he had been “on a five-month bender” of methamphetamine use at the time.

“I’d used ice and they’d really fired me up… when I do ice I say stupid things,” he said of the drive-by incident.

The now-25-year-old was handed a non-parole period of nearly three years and 11 months in jail, which, with time served, means he is eligible to be released in December 2025.