A GETAWAY car driver who spent his share of the spoils from an armed robbery at The Boatrowers Hotel in 2019 on ice and playing the pokies has been sentenced to at least 3.5 years in jail.
James Paul Hall, now 27, faced Newcastle District Court on Friday where the court heard about his role in a brazen holdup at the Stockton hotel.
According to police evidence, Hall was on a drug-fuelled "bender" the night of the armed robbery on June 26, 2019.
The court heard three days before the robbery, his alleged co-offender had stolen a spare key to a silver Audi from a home at Georgetown.
The police case is that the night of the holdup, the spare key was used to steal the car which Hall drove to The Boatrowers Hotel while the others entered the building allegedly armed with a tomahawk and a rifle, ordering patrons and staff to get on the floor about 11.30pm.
Around $6000 in cash was taken from the till and stuffed into a plastic bag, along with a worker's handbag with $20 cash, her mobile phone, makeup, cigarettes and a lighter, the keys to the pub and her car.
The trio allegedly left the pub and the car was dumped at a reserve at Stockton, covered in petrol and set on fire.
Hall was already in custody for an unrelated matter and police installed listening devices in his cell.
It's there that Hall told an undercover police operative about his role in the offence and the fact that he'd earned $4000 for the hit on the pub.
Judge Peter McGrath said Hall had already spent much of his adult life in custody and was at risk of being institutionalised.
"He is in danger of losing the ability completely to live a normal life in the community," he said.
The court heard Hall was injecting amphetamines on almost a daily basis around the time of the offence.
