THE days leading up to New Year's Eve, 2019, were a particularly chaotic, unpredictable and violent time in the life of former soldier Shaun Kenneth Warrington.
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After the kidnappings and intimidation relating to a partner who was trying to extricate herself from his orbit during November, there was then the breaches of an apprehended violence order and the wild property damage at two homes at Aberdare, during which he shouldered down front doors in a distressed state and seemed to think someone was chasing him.
"There's no one chasing you mate," an occupant of one of the homes tried to tell Warrington.
"Mate, you're not coming in.
"There's no one here and no one's going to hurt you."
Soon after came his arrest; Warrington knocking the door off its hinges and becoming stuck underneath and the occupants sitting on the door, and Warrington, until the police arrived.
There's no one chasing you mate. There's no one here and no one's going to hurt you.
- One of the victims of a break-in at Aberdare told a paranoid and out-of-control Shaun Warrington.
Then, shortly after that, suffering from what police believed was a combination of drug use and heat stroke on a 41 degree day in Cessnock, his condition deteriorated to the point he had to be placed into a medically induced coma.
But the saga wasn't over.
While he was in a coma, police searched a home at Carroll Avenue, Cessnock, and located two improvised explosive devices, a Lithgow .303 calibre rifle, thousands of rounds of various calibre ammunition, scopes, silencers, magazines, a homemade taser and gunpowder.
Police said they were searching a garage at the property when they discovered the explosive devices and, after advice from the bomb disposal unit, evacuated the home. One of the devices was a pipe bomb containing nails that would have caused "major, widespread" damage.
Warrington, who is represented by criminal defence lawyer Drew Hamilton, appeared in Newcastle Local Court last week and pleaded guilty to a string of offences, including kidnapping, possession of prohibited weapons and multiple counts of damaging property, intimidation and breaching apprehended domestic violence orders.
He will appear in Newcastle District Court next month to get a sentence date.
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