Ex-real estate worker, drug dealer sentenced for roles in hammer-wielding robbery

While the drug dealer who joined in a violent robbery hugged her supporters once she was finally released from spending more than 480 days in prison, the former real estate worker who helped her acted differently once she left the courthouse.

“F-k off”, Haylie Ellen Sibley told media outside the ACT Supreme Court while they were taking her photo, after she and Natalie Marie Hyde had just been sentenced on Tuesday (27 February).

Hyde was a drug dealer who had given their victim cash for food and fuel as well as drugs on credit, while he was to do work at a house on Abrahams Crescent in Conder.

But by 8 June 2022, she was angry that he hadn’t repaid her and demanded he pay up, Justice David Mossop said.

The victim organised to hand over the keys to the Abrahams Crescent home to Sibley. But when she arrived at the house, another man was with her.

This man opened the door to the victim’s car and started yelling at him while holding a hammer, then threatened him as well. Sibley took the keys from the victim’s car and the man ordered the victim inside the home.

Inside, the man continued to yell and swung the hammer towards the victim, then asked Sibley to call Hyde. She arrived with two other men and began questioning and hitting the victim, saying, “Why are you lying to me”.

The others also hit him multiple times, took his phone and he gave up his password when he was threatened with the hammer. They stole $50 from him and tried to access his banking apps.

Hyde eventually told the group, “Stop hitting him”. The victim asked to go to the bathroom, but when he was taken there, he jumped out of a window and escaped to seek help from a neighbour.

Justice Mossop said the victim had been confined for about one hour and while limited injuries had been inflicted on him, at one stage he had feared for his life.

Both Hyde and Sibley faced a jury trial last year, in which they were found guilty of aggravated robbery and forcible confinement.

Also, on 13 December 2022, police raided Hyde’s home in Conder where they found items including 155 grams of methylamphetamine and $10,000 cash.

She pleaded guilty to charges including drug trafficking over this later incident.

Justice Mossop said Hyde was a “user-dealer” whose problematic use of meth started in her late 20s and at its peak involved her using 1.5 grams of the drug each day.

But he also said the now-45-year-old appeared to be at a stage where she wanted to get over her drug addiction.

The judge said the now-39-year-old Sibley had a relatively minor role in the incident, as while she was initially involved with the victim, that appeared to be at the direction of Hyde.

He said she had a real estate licence and worked in the area for 15 years, while she had spent 33 days in custody.

Hyde, who had spent 483 days in custody over her charges, was convicted and sentenced to about three years and three months’ jail, but to be served as an intensive corrections order in the community.

Sibley, who has launched an appeal against her convictions, was convicted and sentenced to one year and three months’ jail, wholly suspended for a two-year good behaviour order.