On Tuesday May 14 Mark Anthony Munro,aged 52 years was sentenced by Acting Justice Nield, in the Supreme Court on charges of aggravated robbery and intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm.Munro who shot a security guard during an armed robbery at the Mawson Club in May 2004 was jailed for 18 years with a 13 year non parole period.
A jury on 14 March found Munro guilty of assisting Sam John Melkie, aged 53 years, rob a Chubb armoured van outside the club.Both were recruited to carry out the heist after an inside man and a mastermind gathered intelligence and planned the robbery.Munro and Melkie waited in the concrete bus shelter adjacent to the club for the cash van to arrive. The armoured vehicle guards arrived mid-afternoon entering the club to collect the club’s takings which was $151,995 and immediately after the guards left the club returning to the van Melkie and Munro ran towards the guards brandishing firearms.Melkie then grabbed and threw the guard,holding the money bags,to the ground,grabbed them and ran off . Munro then shot guard Kevin Matangi,who was positioned behind a metal guard surrounding a small tree,in the face and chest with a shotgun. Mr Matangi survived but suffered significant injuries requiring surgery and still has around a dozen pellets lodged in his body,not to mention the psychological damage he apparently still suffers from.
Melkie was sentenced to nine years for his part in the raid. In sentencing Munro, Justice John Nield took into account his 134 previous offences and said that the firing of the shotgun was unnecessary,pointless,cowardly and cold blooded.He also said that the charge of inflicting grevious bodily harm was towards the top end of the range and that Munro had showed no remorse.Nield also said that he was unable to say that the offender has good prospects for rehabilitation or that he is unlikely to reoffend .He will be eligible for release on December 18, 2025, at the age of 65.
By ACT judiciary sentencing standards this is an extraordinary sentence but one which I welcome.Munro is expected to appeal and if he does,given previous sentencing norms in the ACT courts,it’s likely that the appeals court will consider the sentence excessive and subsequently reduce the period of incarceration.Time will tell and i’d be more than happy if that wasn’t the case.
The other aspect of this case worth mentioning is that Munro was arrested on 24 February 2010 and bailed on 13 May 2010.The fact that it has taken the judiciary three years to finally get around to convicting and sentencing him is testament to the ongoing joke that Corbell and the merry men of the judiciary have become.
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