A YOUNG man says he felt pressured by two older members of a gang of armed thieves to commit an armed robbery at a Morpeth supermarket that ended with the owner being brutally stabbed in the stomach.
Murrinjii Griffiths, now 19, was on Tuesday sentenced to a maximum of two years and three months, with a non-parole period that equated to time served since his arrest in February last year.
Griffith was aware the ringleader of the crew, Aaron Creighton, was armed with a knife when they held up the Spar Express Supermarket in January, 2022.
But he had been subject to "pressure" from Creighton and another member of the crew, Trae Reid, to be involved in the robbery, which Public Defender Lizzie McLaughlin referred to as "non-exculpatory adolescent duress".
Ms McLaughlin said the peer pressure provided some explanation for Griffiths involvement in the robbery and made sense given his age and background and that of his "more criminally experienced" peers.
"I didn't want to do it but I just jumped out and did it," Griffiths later said of the robbery. "I felt pressured like I couldn't say no."
Creighton and Reid were coming to the end of a three-day crime spree, during which the pair and two other men - Blake Stanton and Victor Russell - tried to hold up the BP service station at Bennetts Green, robbed a cleaner at knifepoint at the Blackbutt Hotel, broke into the Anna Bay Hot Bread Shop, two service stations and the Jesmond post office.
It was about 5.10am on January 19 last year when the three men pulled up outside the supermarket in Swan Street and went inside.
Creighton was armed with a knife and jumped across the counter, pointing the knife at the owner's stomach and demanding money.
They took the cash drawers, but then Creighton barked "where is the rest of the money?"
When the owner replied "that's all I got", Creighton punched him twice in the face and stabbed him in the stomach. The men fled with $600 and the supermarket owner was taken to hospital, where he underwent surgery.
Griffiths had a mask on his face and gloves on his hands but his role in the robbery was confined to grabbing one of the cash registers and fleeing the store, Judge Peter McGrath said.
Judge McGrath found given Griffiths age, his role in the robbery and the time spent on remand since he turned 18, he could be sentenced to a non-parole period of 17 months and one week, the equivalent of time served, and be released on parole on Tuesday.
Russell in March received a 14-month intensive corrections order and 100 hours of community service for his role in another of the armed robberies committed by the crew.
Creighton will be sentenced in Newcastle District Court on Friday, while Reid will be sentenced later in the year after he was recently accepted into the Balund-a Program, an innovative residential diversionary program aimed at reducing the incarceration rate of Aboriginal people.
