A SECOND young man who embarked on a months-long rural crime spree in the Upper Hunter - setting fire to structures, breaking into homes to steal firearms and committing a terrifying armed robbery - will learn his fate in two weeks.
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Brandon Stephen Kennedy-Jones, 21, faced a sentence hearing in Newcastle District Court on Friday after he pleaded guilty to nine offences, including multiple counts of destroying property in company by fire, possession of unauthorised firearms, accessory after the fact to break and enter and armed robbery.
Kennedy-Jones and his best mate, Brendan Cannard, also 21, were motivated by a need to get money for drugs and destroy evidence, but mostly by "stupidity" as they terrorised farmers and remote property owners in the Upper Hunter between September, 2021 and their arrest in February, 2022.
They set a bushfire, torched an abandoned property, stole firearms and held up a remote service station armed with a machete and a rifle fitted with a silencer.
And they filmed some of their crimes on their phones and could be heard laughing about the armed robbery victim's fear or a mob of emus desperately trying to outrun their ute.
"Don't kill me, don't kill me," Cannard said, imitating the female victim of the armed robbery. "Haha. Imagine being her and not knowing if we were going to swing that machete down or not. "I can't wait to see it on the news."
Cannard was last month jailed for a maximum of 10 years, with a non-parole period of six years for his role in the crime spree and Kennedy-Jones is looking at similar sentence when he learns his fate on June 2.
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