A woman found in an Albury motel room with a shortened firearm has managed to avoid jail.
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Elissa Pawley had been warned in Albury Local Court in early February that there was a strong chance she would be put behind bars.
She had claimed the sawn-off .22 calibre rifle was owned by her co-accused.
The matter was adjourned from a brief mention in early February to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentence report.
At the time, magistrate Tony Murray had warned Pawley, who was 20 at the time of the offence, that the possession of the firearm was “a serious matter”.
If charged as an indictable matter she could have faced a jail sentence of 10 years.
But because it wasn’t, the potential jail sentence was considerably less.
Pawley, now 21, has ended up being convicted and placed on a bond to be of good behaviour for two years.
She had been warned that if she didn’t get the report done, there would have been no other option than to send her to jail.
Pawley was also fined $500 on each charge of possess a shortened firearm (not a pistol) without authority and possess a prohibited firearm.
The Yarrawonga woman initially planned on contesting the charges.
But she changed her mind after Mr Murray handed her a copy of the police facts at the February mention of the charges.
These facts revealed that police had gathered intelligence that suggested Pawley and her co-accused had the weapon when they went to the Paddlesteamer Motel in Wodonga Place, Albury, on July 22.
Police attended the motel with the intention of also arresting Pawley’s co-accused,
That was over an unrelated outstanding warrant.
They arrived at the motel at 6.10am to find Pawley and the man about to get into a taxi.
They were quickly arrested and their motel room searched.
It was during this search that police uncovered the weapon on a bench.
This was located right next to the front door of the motel unit.
Pawley had left a bag of her clothing right next to the weapon, which had both a sawn-off barrel and a sawn-off stock.
But police said that no ammunition was found in the motel room.
The court was told the weapon in fact looked like a pistol.
Police had the gun tested specifically to determine whether it was a prohibited weapon.
That establish the weapon was indeed prohibited.
Mr Murray was told that Pawley – who had had issues with drugs in the past and had previously indicated she had moved back with her parents to tackle this problem – did not and had never held a firearms licence.