DETECTIVES investigating a terrifying home invasion at Mallabula last year rounded up a group of young men nearby and put them into an impromptu police identity parade, lining them up on the road and illuminating them with the headlights of a police car.
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One of the victims, who only minutes earlier had been terrorised by four young men armed with baseball bats who smashed their way into their home believing the occupant was a drug dealer, was then asked to pick out anybody she thought was responsible.
The woman, who sat in a nearby car, then picked out three men from the line-up.
One of those men, Kyle Hodder, 18, was this week jailed for a maximum of 10 months, with a non-parole period of five months, a period he had already served before being granted bail, after he pleaded guilty to his role in the home invasion.
It's a staple of Hollywood blockbusters and police procedurals, but the police line-up, or identification parade, rarely gets a mention in NSW criminal courts.
Perhaps even rarer than the official identification parade, which features strict rules governed by the NSW Evidence Act and police procedures, is the impromptu line-up - complete with the illumination from the headlights of a police car - of a group of people found nearby a short time after the crime. Hodder and three other young men were at Mallabula about 11pm on October 17, 2019, when the group began discussing breaking into a nearby home to steal drugs and cash.
One of the men - who remains before the courts - told the group he thought a man who lived there was a cannabis dealer and Hodder tagged along because he was interested in getting some drugs and cash.
Two of the men armed themselves with baseball bats and the group covered their faces with shirts and other clothing, piled into a car and drove the short distance around to the home.
Two of the men tried to kick down the wooden door before they turned their attention to a large window, which one of the men smashed with a baseball bat and then began climbing through.
The occupants of the home - a man and four teenagers - came into the living room and saw the intruders coming into the house.
The man armed himself first with a guitar and said: "what the f---. If you want to have a go, come on", before he ran and grabbed a baseball bat.
The intruders then fled.
