The brains behind a failed Werribee South hold-up – a plan foiled when the victim pretended to faint at the feet of the man pointing a gun at him – has been jailed for at least four years.
Believing a market gardener had hundreds of thousands of dollars stored in a safe in his home, Armando Perri organised an armed robbery yet arranged for two other men to carry it out on August 13, 2013, only for the plan to unravel spectacularly.
Cousins Stuart Martin and Andrew Phillips went to the gardener’s home in a van. Martin knocked on the door, pretending to be a courier, while Phillips waited in the van.
But the plan went awry when the gardener’s wife saw Martin pull a pistol from a cardboard box, and she ran out the back of the house screaming for help as the gun was pointed at her husband.
Moments later the gardener said he was about to faint and dropped to the floor. That sent Martin into a panic and he ran back to the van, and he and Phillips drove away.
The van was soon intercepted by police.
Martin and Phillips last year pleaded guilty to offences and this year gave evidence at trial against Perri, who had organised the plan and arranged to get the gun and van.
County Court judge Michael Tinney on Friday jailed Perri, 65, for six years and nine months, and a minimum 4½ years, after he was found guilty of one count of aggravated burglary.
Judge Tinney said the crime was a serious one that had traumatised the gardener and his wife.
“Their existence was shattered by this planned and serious crime. It was a startling event,” the judge said.
“The weapon was a sinister one indeed and was presented at the door.
“It was like something out of a movie except they were living it.”
Phillips, 22, was last year put on a three-year community corrections order and Martin, 45, – Phillips’ godfather – was jailed for a minimum of 16 months.
Judge Tinney said the crime had been met by disbelief among the Werribee South farming community, of which the three offenders had been a part.
Perri, a father of four, has already spent four weeks in custody.
Adam Cooper, The Age
