Knife-wielding man jailed for home invasion he went to with his mother

A young man who invaded his brother’s ex’s home, along with his mother, has been handed a jail sentence by the ACT Supreme Court.

Bailey Hagen, 20, was convicted and sentenced to 12 months’ jail for aggravated burglary and two months for assault, suspended after he served four months.

He had gone to the home of his brother’s ex-partner with his mother Trinity Lee Hagen, who remains before the courts over her alleged role, in the early hours of 31 July 2021, apparently to retrieve his brother’s belongings.

They were also with a teenager as well as the women Mikaela Engeler and Rebecca Eade, Justice Geoffrey Kennett said when describing the agreed statement of facts in his sentencing remarks released earlier this month.

Engeler was the new partner of his older brother Jordan Hagen, who was locked up in the Alexander Maconochie Centre at the time.

The group knocked on the ex-partner’s door at 2 am, and Bailey went inside, said, “Where’s my brother’s sh-t?” and then refused to leave.

Trinity is alleged to have started putting items into a bag, including some that belonged to the ex-partner.

Also, Engeler dragged the ex-partner out of the house where she and Eade punched and kicked her, while Engeler also used a “jet lighter” to burn her hair.

The ex was left with welts to her forehead and neck, cuts on her ear, torso and hand, and singed hair.

While the assault was happening, Bailey picked up a machete or a knife and stood nearby.

“He assisted the assault on [the ex-partner] by his presence and by preventing [the ex-partner’s] brother from intervening to try to assist her,” Justice Kennett said.

He said the aggravated burglary was “moderately serious”.

“It occurred in the victim’s home and included what can be described as the ransacking of her bedroom, as well as damage to some items in the premises,” he said.

Justice Kennett accepted Bailey’s “disadvantaged upbringing left him poorly equipped to make sound judgments about the appropriate way to deal with any disagreement concerning his brother’s relationship” with the ex-partner.

“It also left him poorly equipped to make sensible decisions about participating in an undertaking that involved both his mother (as a participant) and a misguided attempt to protect his brother’s interests,” he said.

He said Bailey, who pleaded guilty to his two charges just four days before he was to face trial, hoped to work as a labourer when released from custody.

He had already been in custody for 107 days before his sentencing on 11 October and his sentence was backdated.

Engeler and Eade were both sentenced on charges of assault in the ACT Magistrates Court, the former to 14 months’ jail fully suspended for an 18-month good behaviour order and the latter to three months’ jail fully suspended for a 12-month good behaviour order. Trinity will be sentenced in December.