A man convicted of a "bomb" hoax which shut down Batemans Bay's CBD in March has been sentenced to two years' jail, but walked out of court after an Intensive Corrections Order was imposed.
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Aidan Gomez, 32, of Batemans Bay, pleaded guilty in Batemans Bay Local Court on Monday, July 22, to one count of leaving or sending an article to create a false belief of danger.
Magistrate Doug Dick said the offence, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, was particularly serious given the current social climate.
"It's quite clear what you did was designed to cause concern," he said. "The community is sensitive to this type of offence nowadays, you see similar things on the news almost every week."
Defence solicitor, Lisa Stone, said her client had "no intention to scare anyone".
Ms Stone said Gomez had a "novelty clock duct-taped to a car battery" and "thought it would be funny to prank a friend in Surfside".
She claimed the apparatus "got too heavy" for Gomez to carry, but it wouldn't fit in the garbage bin, so he put it in a garden bed in a plaza between Perry and Orient Streets, Batemans Bay.
READ MORE: How the Batemans Bay bomb hoax unfolded
Ms Stone said if he had his time again, he would have dismantled the device and thrown the clock away separately before returning for the battery.
However, Magistrate Dick was skeptical of Gomez's story, saying "fact is stranger the fiction, and I just heard a lot of fiction".
The device was found on the morning of Monday, March 4, 2019 and sparked the evacuation of a section of the Batemans Bay CBD.
Gomez was also sentenced for seven breaches of bond, including stalking/intimidating with intention to cause fear, common assault, larceny, custody of a knife in public, and failure to appear. He was sentenced to 12 months' jail for each breach.
Magistrate Dick warned Gomez this was his last opportunity to remain out of jail.
"We're moving up the scale," he said. "You're running out of options.
"You'll make promises to the court that you will be of good behaviour.
"You'll be told three times what the consequences of breaching your order is, so you can't say you didn't understand."
Gomez is required to attend any rehabilitation or treatments mandated by Community Corrections, abstain from all drugs and alcohol, submit to random drug and alcohol testing, and remain in a residential rehabilitation facility.
