A man who murdered an army veteran and drug dealer in a botched robbery had no real idea how he would pull the crime off, according to the judge who jailed him for more than two decades.
Raymond Allen, 41, stabbed David McArthur, 48, at the Palm Beach Caravan Park at Sanctuary Point on the NSW south coast in July 2021.
He murdered the older man while trying to rob him of drugs or the money to purchase them, stabbing him once in the chest and severing an artery before fleeing.
Mr McArthur bled out after retreating to his caravan and barricading himself inside.
Allen was spending his fortnightly Centrelink payments on 14 two-litre casks of port wine, drinking one a day while also consuming various other drugs.
He needed money to maintain his substance abuse.
Justice Desmond Fagan said it was "a measure of the drug- and alcohol-induced fog of the offender's brain that he had no rational concept of how he would complete this robbery".
He jailed Allen for 22 years with a non-parole period of 15 years and nine months in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
A man who accompanied Allen told the 41-year-old's murder trial that he began to panic on the way and warned the would-be robber not to "staunch" Mr McArthur.
"This bloke's been in the army … this isn't smart play," he recalled warning Allen.
Allen responded: "Yeah it's good, I know that … I'll just stick this all the way through him."
He at least meant to seriously injure Mr McArthur when he stabbed him with a kitchen knife and the jury rejected an argument Allen acted in self-defence in finding him guilty of murder, the judge said.
Allen's substantial and worsening criminal history meant he was not entitled to any leniency, despite a disadvantaged early life that undoubtedly contributed to his descent into substance abuse and crime, Justice Fagan added.
"There had been 20 years of adult life over which it might reasonably have been expected that at some point Raymond Allen would have taken a grip … and given sufficient thought to other human beings to cause him to refrain from carrying out yet another robbery," he said.
Allen will be eligible for parole on July 5, 2038.
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