What started as a homeless man's desire to steal clean socks from Wodonga Bunnings, quickly got out of hand and ended with him attempting a car-jacking, frightening his victim while armed with a tomahawk.
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Kane Corben, 25, will now spend 16 months in jail for his crime and will serve a minimum of nine months before he is eligible for parole.
He was sentenced in the County Court this week after pleading guilty to attempted aggravated carjacking, theft and possessing cannabis.
A Bunnings security guard chased Corben out of the store on April 24 after he stole boots, cargo pants, headlight, hooded jumper, wire cutters, gloves, clock, socks, wire strainer and beanie worth $442.
His barrister Diana Price told the court he needed the clothing because he was homeless and sleeping in the bush, and his clothes had been soaked in the rain.
While running down the rail trail, Corben was approached by the security guard and another man holding a stick.
He picked up a tomahawk he had hidden in the bushes and ran at the security guard, saying "give me a break, let me go".
Prosecutor Tahlia Ferrari told the court Corben then ran up to a Toyota Hilux ute parked in the driveway of Storage King, where a man was sitting in the driver's seat, demanding the car because he needed it to make his getaway.
"The accused held the axe up in the air beside the victim's head," she said.
The 46-year-old victim would later describe the ordeal as "the most frightening experience of my life".
The incident was caught on CCTV.
After failing to get the car, Corben fled down Victoria Cross Parade and jumped over fence into Bandiana Army Barracks.
He later handed himself into police.
Judge Michael Bourke said a jail sentence was appropriate because it was "highly threatening, violent behaviour" and Corben was a recidivist offender with a "considerable criminal record" for drugs, dishonesty and violence.
"I accept that discovery of your theft meant that subsequent offences occurred in a context of quite spontaneous panic and desperation," he said.
"That is not to understate the serious features of the offending, for example the use of a frightening weapon and the likely impact upon victims."
He said he accepted that Corben was genuinely remorseful and had health issues that included stimulant use disorder from his drug addiction, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder from issues in his past.
"He's 25 and moving towards a stage, I would have thought, where he needs not only to decide, but to be able to turn it around," Judge Bourke said.
"Drug-using offenders, by the time they get to 40, they're either serving long sentences or they're not with us anymore.
"That's something he has to grapple with when he does get released."
