A "ginger ninja" is set to leave the "soul-sucking" city of Canberra after a court heard a trip to satisfy his "hungry belly" led him to burn a hat linked to a murder scene.
The offender's mother claimed "everyone" was attempting to "make a mockery" of him in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday, when the young man avoided a jail sentence for destroying evidence.
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum handed the man, aged in his early 20s, a two-year good behaviour order.
The offender, who cannot be named, was initially charged with being an accessory to murder after an 18-year-old man was killed during a brawl at the Weston Creek skatepark in 2020.
However, a boy accused of the murder was cleared last year and the accessory charge was dropped.
When the offender instead stood trial last December for destroying evidence, a jury found him guilty.
His trial heard three participants in the fatal fight had visited the offender's home after the deadly brawl.
One of them brought with him a hat that belonged to an opponent he had stabbed during the fight.
That opponent turned out to be a 16-year-old boy, who was seriously injured when knifed in the back.
When the stabber revealed he had the hat stuffed in his pants, the offender replied with words to the effect of: "Shit. What are you, stupid?"
The offender grabbed the hat, placed it in a plastic bag and burnt it in his backyard a few days later.
Police subsequently questioned the offender, who blurted out: "OK, I f---ing did it. I burnt the hat."
The offender's reasons for doing so included "just trying to be loyal to a mate" and protecting his younger brother, who was friends with the stabber.
"It was a stupid f---ing decision, I guess," he said.
The offender was set to be sentenced on Tuesday, but the case was adjourned to obtain medical evidence after the court was told his mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
When the case resumed on Friday, the offender's mother gave evidence via phone from Queensland.
She had not provided proof of her diagnosis and refused to grant prosecutors access to any documents confirming it, expressing anger at "Canberra's system" and saying she had moved away to escape it.
"When it comes to Canberra, I walked away because it is a soul-sucking city," the woman told the court.
The woman said she wanted her son to follow suit and come to live with her in Queensland, where the offender could "be the ginger ninja that he is".
She described the offender as "a vulnerable kid", who "wears his heart on his sleeve for his mates".
"He got in a situation where his belly was hungry," the offender's mother told the court.
"He went to McDonald's [opposite the skatepark] and asked the police what happened. That's how he got involved."
The offender also expressed a desire to move to Queensland, swearing on God's name he would just go before his case was finalised if it did not conclude on Friday.
Defence barrister Travis Jackson urged Chief Justice McCallum not to stand in the young man's way, telling the court the offender's rehabilitation would be best served outside "the Canberra milieu".
Prosecutor Trent Hickey agreed the interstate move seemed appropriate, but he pushed the judge to impose a suspended jail sentence.
Mr Hickey said the man's offence was serious and it was "hard to see any deterrence" in a simple good behaviour order.
Chief Justice McCallum agreed a good behaviour order on its own would not achieve deterrence, but she said the court could not always address all the purposes of sentencing.
She said hearing testimony from the offender's mother had given the court "powerful" evidence of his "traumatic" and deprived childhood, which substantially reduced his moral culpability.
The judge also noted the destruction of the hat had not prevented the successful prosecution of the person who stabbed its owner.
Chief Justice McCallum ultimately said Canberra was "no place for" the offender as she imposed the good behaviour order, which requires the man to move in with his mother within two weeks.
