Sentence: Total effective sentence 4 years; non-parole period 2 years 10 months; s 6AAA:5 years; non-parole period 3 years 9 months
[2]
Ben Maslen, you have pleaded guilty to theft (3 charges), handling stolen goods and armed robbery, all occurring between 3 and 5 March 2025.
You have also pleaded guilty to a summary charge of unlicensed driving on 3 to 6 March 2025.
The agreed basis for your guilty plea is set out in the summary of prosecution opening dated 29 September 2025.
In short, on 3 March 2025 you and another man stole a black Range Rover from Boathouse Drive, Melbourne during the Moomba preparations (charge 1).
That evening, you filled the tank at Ampol, Reservoir, valued at about $63 and drove off without paying (charge 2).
The next day, 4 March 2025, mid-afternoon, you did the same at Liberty service station, Craigieburn, valued at about $86 (charge 3).
Early the next morning, 5 March 2025 at about 4 am, you and another man drove to Pita & Kebab at Hoppers Crossing. You walked in, urgently it must be said, wearing a balaclava and gloves, brandishing a knife. Your mate followed you.
Inside, the victim, KZ, was working alone. You ran up to him, demanding he open the till. At knifepoint, you ushered him forcefully behind the counter, directing him to the till. Once he opened it, you intervened and took the cash drawer out, containing only about $120 to $130.
Your co-accused, meanwhile, took a mobile phone from the counter which belonged to the victim. As you left, one of you yelled back at him, raising the knife, threatening to return if he called police (charge 5).
At about 6 pm the next day, 6 March 2025, you were driving the same vehicle near Northland shopping centre bearing stolen registration plates. They had been on the vehicle for a couple of days (charge 4).
You were driving during these days without a licence (summary offence).
Completely unsurprisingly, the effect on KZ is likely to have been significant and will stay with him. Your offending against him was personally menacing. It involved a dangerous weapon. You threatened him with it in close quarters and further you were part of a threat about what would happen if he called police. I accept that the effect of this kind of conduct on a vulnerable worker is serious and likely to be long-lasting.
Police arrested you on other matters a few days later on 10 March 2025. However, you have only been in custody on this matter formally since 25 June 2025 when you were committed. You declined to be interviewed after speaking with your lawyer.
On 28 July 2025, a Magistrate at Heidelberg sentenced you to 2 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 16 months for charges of stalking, assault, persistent breaches of intervention order and other offences. You are now serving that sentence. As of today, you have completed seven and a half months of that sentence.
You indicated a guilty plea to the charges before me at an early stage during a committal mention in the Magistrates' Court. I accept that you have thereby accepted responsibility for what you did. You have facilitated the course of justice by your guilty plea, and you have effectively saved the community and the victim the cost and time and other inconvenience required for a trial.
Your plea I accept is an indicator of some remorse.
During your plea you relied on the following material:
A psychological report of Ms Fleming dated 18 July 2025 (Exhibit 1);
A psychological report of Ms Kocic dated 6 October 2025 (Exhibit 2);
A bundle of certificates of courses you have done in custody (Exhibit 3); and
A bundle of CISP progress reports relating to the bail you were on in the Magistrates' Court matter (Exhibit 4).
As to your personal circumstances, you were born and raised in Melbourne. You were the middle child of three to your parents and you report no abuse or trauma in your upbringing. Your parents have remained supportive of you throughout most of your life, although I did not see them in court. I will not hold that against you.
You progressed through school with some difficulties until about Year 8 when you discontinued and went to work in car detailing for some time and in other employment - perhaps at times it is best described as sporadically.
You are currently single and have no children and a significant feature of your earlier years since the age of 14 has been your drug use. This has been a problem for you at school age times and since.
You started to use cannabis around that age and by the age of 19, you began using methamphetamine and GHB. Your use of those substances was effectively ongoing right up until the age of the time of your arrest and time in custody. Although, when you were released on parole in 2021, for a period of time you were abstinent, and you report another period of time of abstinence when things were going well for you.
I accept that this history demonstrates that at times, in the right circumstances, you are able to stay drug-free and to engage in a prosocial contribution to the community. However, it must be said that for significant periods of time, particularly in relation to the 2017 sentence of Judge McInerney of this court, you have been in custody.
Your criminal history is significant. The aggravated burglary and related charges from 2017 have represented your most serious offending and your longest sentence to date. You have been in custody in relation to other related-type offending over the years since your late teenage years.
To your credit, you subjected yourself to two psychological assessments in recent times.
The first by psychologist Laura Fleming whose report was addressing the matters contained in the Magistrates' Court case. That resulted in your two-year sentence. Ms Fleming indicated, having conducted a number of tests, that you had poor interpersonal functioning in connection with your drug use; and you are likely to have had PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) arising from the way you have been treated by others, including when you were kidnapped and assaulted by associates in the criminal milieu.
She reported that you are likely to be diagnosed with a substance use disorder and that much in unsurprising. You would accept that, I expect.
She suggests that there are personality traits that have developed in you over the years that are a combination of traumatic stress, depressive symptoms and personality issues such as antisocial personality symptoms, amongst others.
In preparation for this week's hearing and today's sentence, you were assessed again by Daniella Kocic who provided a report dated 16 October 2025. In it, Ms Kocic reviews the material about post-traumatic stress and confirms your diagnosis saying that this is a long-lasting condition, until you are able to treat it appropriately.
You also have severe drug related problems and difficulties in regulating your emotional response to situations that you encounter. She suggests that you do not currently live with a high degree of anxiety or stress or depressive symptoms, rather they are mild.
As to your risk of future offending, Ms Kocic conducted a well-known and relatively reliable risk assessment of you and indicated that unless you were able to change your drug use in a significant way, then you would remain at high risk of future violence. I accept that.
As to sentencing, the maximum penalty for charges 1-3, the theft charges, is 10 years' imprisonment each. For charge 4, handling stolen goods or retaining them, it is 15 years' imprisonment. For charge 5, armed robbery, it is 25 years' imprisonment. For the summary offence, it is a fine.
Charge 5, armed robbery, is a Category 2 offence under the Sentencing Act, which means I must impose a term of imprisonment for it and not a combination sentence unless one of the limited exceptions apply. It was not suggested that they do.
I find that the objective gravity of your spree of offences is high. You robbed a vulnerable worker, alone in his shop in the early hours when no-one else was around. You did so in company with a co-offender. You held a knife to him while demanding that he do as you pleased. You then threatened him, or your co-offender did in your presence, not to call police or you would return.
You entered first. Your role was greater than your co-offender. You held the knife to the victim. You committed these offences after you had been placed on bail on other matters that were dealt with by the Magistrate, but you had failed to appear at the time of this offence and so instead of being on bail, warrants were out for your arrest.
Accordingly, the obligation in the Sentencing Act to cumulate sentences upon you for offending whilst on bail does not apply. However, I have a discretion about the degree of concurrency and cumulation I should order, particularly in respect of the principles relating to totality. That is, I should ensure that the total sentence you serve across both matters in the Magistrates' Court and here should reflect the totality of your criminal conduct. I have considered the circumstances of your offending in the court below, the circumstances of you being on the run at the time, as well as what happened on the date of this offence and your conduct since.
Your counsel, Mr Beale, did not submit that your blameworthiness for what happened in March 2025 is lessened due to your post-traumatic stress, but that it does make prison life more onerous for you.
The prosecutor accepts that, as do I.
Mr Beale also submitted that because you became addicted to methamphetamine in particular while a teenager at 19, and that these addictions feature strongly in your offending. I should therefore find your moral culpability, your blameworthiness, to be reduced by a limited degree.
I accept that in principle an addiction begun as a teenager and that continues and contributes to later offending does have an effect on moral culpability. That is, it reduces the blame you should bear for doing what you have done.
In this case however I have borne in mind the period of time that has passed since you were 19, the fact that you have to your credit and at least on two significant occasions remained drug free and engaged in a prosocial life in the community. You are not to be punished for doing that, but it does mean that the effect of your addiction that you started at 19 is to a significant degree an adult matter as well as a matter relating to your teenage years.
I will, as requested, take into account the circumstances of the commencement of your addiction and the age at which it started to the limited degree that it was suggested that I should.
Sentences for violent offending with weapons against a vulnerable victim must deter others from doing so. Such offences also must be met with clear denunciation and impose just punishment.
You have a significant and relevant criminal history. I will not punish you again for what you have done in the past, but I must take your past wrongs into account when considering your prospects for change and the need to deter you specifically from further offending.
I also find that in your case, one that involves a history of serious offences of violence including with weapons, that weight must be given to protecting the community from your repeat of such conduct.
I will however, consider the totality principle and make orders for concurrency between the offences in this case to account for the common circumstances from which they arose. I also have regard to this when determining how this sentence interacts with your existing one.
I find that your prospects for rehabilitation in all the circumstances are guarded. Your prior history and your lack of engagement in rehabilitation attempts during your recent time on the CISP bail program, lead me to find that you do not seem ready to do the hard work required to manage your risk of further offending and causing harm to others.
I accept, however, that your risk is something that can be addressed by services that are available to assist you when you choose to fully and candidly engage. That leaves room for hope.
Both the prosecutor and your counsel submit that only a gaol term attracting a non-parole period is appropriate in the circumstances and I agree.
I sentence you as follows.
[3]
On Charge 1, theft of motor vehicle, 12 months' imprisonment.
[4]
On Charge 4, handling stolen goods, 6 months' imprisonment.
[5]
On Charge 5, armed robbery, 3 years 6 months' imprisonment.
[6]
Four months of the sentence on Charge 1, one month of the sentence on Charge 2 and one month of the sentence on Charge 3 are to be served cumulatively upon each other and the sentence on Charge 5.
The total effective sentence in this case is 4 years' imprisonment.
In order to give effect to what I calculate to be an appropriate minimum term before which you can be considered for parole, I fix a new single non-parole period commencing today of 2 years 10 months.
I do not make any declaration of pre-sentence detention. That does not mean I have ignored the fact that you have been in custody for some time, but the non-parole period and the head sentence have been reduced in order to take account of the time that you have served.
On Charges 1, 2 and 3 under s89 of the Sentencing Act, I must disqualify you from driving or obtaining a driver licence, and I do so, for a period of 12 months from today. That is to say, when you are paroled or released, you will be able to return to VicRoads and obtain your licence.
In accordance with s6AAA of the Sentencing Act, if you had not pleaded guilty, I would have imposed a sentence of 5 years' imprisonment and fixed a non-parole period of 3 years 9 months.
On the summary charge of driving unlicensed, I convict and discharge you.