THE hooded figure clutching the long rifle appears suddenly in the front yard of a home at Raymond Terrace and in seconds he is at the front door.
He flings open the screen and lands a heavy kick on the wooden door before raising the Winchester rifle and firing a round into the house.
The banging had woken those inside and as one victim, clutching a knife, yelled "f--- off" while his dog barked like mad, a woman watched what was happening outside on CCTV monitors.
She saw the masked figure dressed all in black holding the gun, heard the gunshots and was later found hiding under a heap of clothing in a bedroom, crying and shaking. Hysterical, she managed to utter the words: "he has a gun".
That footage from outside the home in Parkway Avenue about 4.15am on October 18, 2022 was played in Newcastle District Court on Friday during a sentence hearing for violent career criminal, Daniel Paul Bell, who has admitted to being the shadowy figure armed with the rifle.
Bell, who has a long history of violence, drug addiction, mental health issues and has spent much of the past decade behind bars, was on Friday jailed for a maximum of six years and 10 months, with a non-parole period of four years and four months.
With time served, he will be eligible for parole in September, 2027.
The Newcastle Herald previously reported that Bell was in 2019 found not guilty of attempted murder, a jury left with some doubt that he was the balaclava-clad man who ambushed an ice user and shot him in the buttock at Muswellbrook in 2017.
The jury in that case didn't know of Bell's violent history, including that he had previously been jailed for six years for an armed robbery and, at the time of the trial, was serving a jail term for an unrelated stabbing.
Bell was spending a rare spell out of prison when he went to a home in Parkway Avenue at Raymond Terrace in the early hours of October 18, 2022 and began kicking and banging on the front door.
He fired two shots through the door before accidentally ejecting several live rounds of ammunition onto the front doorstep.
He then fled to a waiting car where he was spotted by a neighbour leaving for work.
Bell went to get into the car, but then hesitated and looked at the neighbour and, while armed with the rifle, snarled "f--- off".
He fled and that afternoon was a passenger in the car when it crashed at Coffs Harbour.
He leapt from the car and fled, but was arrested and immediately claimed he had been kidnapped.
Police found the gun, which had been stolen from a house at Mayfield in July 2022, and ammunition and took Bell to Coffs Harbour police station.
Bell denied any knowledge of the shooting in Raymond Terrace and it wasn't until May, 2023, after police received a DNA match on the firearm and the front door of the home in Parkway Avenue, that he was arrested and charged.
