A good Samaritan who stopped to ask a distressed-looking man if he needed help has described the moment she rolled out of the way of her vehicle after being car-jacked in broad daylight outside her parents' Lake Macquarie home.
The woman told Newcastle District Court on Monday that she was in her SUV when Colin Calgaret approached her on the afternoon of April 27 last year - she did not know he was on the run from police following a month-long crime spree.
The woman intended to ask if he needed help, but Calgaret screamed at her, threw her from the driver's seat and onto the ground in front of the vehicle.
"I was confused and in shock," the woman said in a victim impact statement read to the court.
"As I lay on the ground next to the front wheel, I saw the tyres and wheel turn angled towards my head and the engine roar. In that moment I thought I was going to die.
"Instinctively, I rolled away and out of the tyre's direct path to escape being run over."
Calgaret fled the scene in the woman's vehicle and soon led police on his second pursuit in as many days, during which he caused a crash with a police car.
The woman told the court the car-jacking was a "traumatic, life-altering experience", which caused her "physical, emotional, psychological and financial harm".
The car-jacking was part of a crime spree that included two police pursuits - one lasting an hour - as well as stealing vehicles, petrol theft, and a jailhouse assault in which he punched another inmate in the head.
Judge Peter McGrath, SC, on Monday afternoon sentenced the 22-year-old to a maximum of 7.5 years in jail, with a 4.5 year non parole period.
The day before the violent car-jacking, Calgaret slipped through the net of police after he refused to stop for officers as he drove a Lexus he had previously stolen from Merewether through Cessnock, Kurri Kurri, Charlestown, Lambton, Broadmeadow and Waratah. The vehicle was later found abandoned at Jesmond.
Earlier in the month, he had been driving the stolen Lexus when he saw a woman take a photo of him after he threw take-away food containers out the window.
He stopped the Lexus, approached her vehicle, opened the door and threatened her with a machete.
Police arrested Calgaret at Morpeth on April 28, 2022.
Judge McGrath said on Monday Calgaret had come from a background of "profound deprivation".
He said the car-jacking would have been "terrifying" for the woman involved.
Calgaret's sentence was backdated to account for some time already spent in custody. He will be first eligible for parole in June 2027.
