Kasey King jailed for nearly five years over Abode Hotel car park shooting in Belconnen

Kasey Tyson King, 22, was under the influence of methamphetamine when he shot Peter Hill during a botched robbery attempt below the Abode Hotel in Belconnen last August.

After being arrested the following day in NSW for unrelated offences, King spent just shy of a year behind bars on remand before facing the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday.

Justice Michael Elkaim sentenced him, after he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted aggravated robbery, to four years and eight months in jail.

An agreed statement of facts shows Mr Hill, his carer and his dog, Tigger, took an elevator to the hotel's underground car park about 9.15am on the day in question.

Mr Hill, who previously told The Canberra Times he was staying at the hotel while waiting to move into his new home, immediately noticed glass on the ground near his carer's car, which was visibly damaged.

He called Tigger back to him to prevent the dog cutting its paws, prompting King, who was standing at some nearby escalators, to ask: "Are you talking to me?"

When Mr Hill responded by saying, "You've broken into the car, mate", King pulled what appeared to be a sawn-off .22 rifle from his pants.

Mr Hill passed Tigger's lead to his carer and told her to take the dog back into the lift, which she did after screaming "he's got a gun" and throwing the car keys towards the vehicle.

King then pointed his gun at Mr Hill's head and repeatedly threatened to shoot him unless the victim handed over the keys to the Mazda 3.

"Mr Hill could see that the offender's pupils were dilated and his body was shaking," the agreed facts state.

When a fearful Mr Hill tried to head towards an exit, King told him: "I'm going to f---ing kill you."

The 22-year-old then pointed his gun down and deliberately fired it, shooting Mr Hill in the lower left leg from about a metre away.

The wounded victim subsequently crawled towards the Mazda 3, from which he managed to call triple-zero despite King following him and repeating the death threat.

King eventually fled and paramedics arrived to race Mr Hill to hospital, where he spent about three weeks undergoing multiple rounds of surgery and receiving treatment.

Mr Hill suffered injuries that included a broken left leg, while he will be permanently scarred by both the gunshot wound and incisions required to treat complications.

In a victim impact statement provided to the court on Thursday, he said some bullet fragments were still "floating" in his leg and causing him "significant pain" every day.

He wrote that his life would never be the same, and that he had needed a carer with him seven days per week since the incident because he could no longer walk unassisted.

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"This is not how I imagined my life would be at this age," the man, in his 50s, wrote.

He also described how, through no fault of his own, he now had trouble sleeping or relaxing.

"Every time I close my eyes or start to relax I get flashbacks of the gun being pointed in my face, and I hear the words 'I'm going to kill you' over and over again," Mr Hill wrote.

"This threat and memory will live with me forever.

"I am more anxious and paranoid than ever ... I am always looking over my shoulder."

Justice Elkaim noted "the whole of [Mr Hill's] life has been affected".

Turning to King, the judge said the offender had grown up in "a criminal environment" and started using drugs at an early stage of his disadvantaged childhood.

He said the 22-year-old father of three had a significant criminal history for someone so young, and noted a psychiatrist's report said the shooter had expressed regret and sympathy for the victim.

Having already served about 11 months of the two-and-a-half-year non-parole period Justice Elkaim ultimately imposed, King will become eligible for release in February 2024.

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