Sugimatatihuna Mena found guilty of attempted murder after Spence shooting

An ACT Supreme Court jury found Sugimatatihuna Bernard Gabriel Mena, 24, guilty on Friday of the murder attempt and unlawfully discharging a firearm in an act endangering life.

He and co-accused Bradley Joe Roberts and Rebecca Dulcie Parlov, who are both aged in their mid-20s, were also found guilty of joint commission aggravated burglary.

Their retrial began last Monday, when the jury heard details of an event on April 11, 2021.

On that date, the victim was in a car with a woman, who cannot be identified, at Bonner shops about 3am.

The unidentified woman met Roberts, who saw the victim and expressed a desire to do something to him because he was a "kiddie fiddler".

Later that night, when the victim and unnamed female were back at the woman's house in Spence, Parlov began texting the woman about the victim being a "kiddie fiddler" and indicated they wanted to come over to sort that issue out.

The woman tried to inform Parlov the victim was not a paedophile.

However, later that morning, Parlov and Roberts forced their way into the woman's home, where they had a confrontation with the victim.

Mena then came in, took a gun out of his pants and shot the victim in the stomach.

The 24-year-old then reloaded the gun and shooting the victim, who subsequently ended up in a coma, in the face.

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Prosecutor Trent Hickey described the assertion that the victim was a "kiddie fiddler" as "nonsense" and told the jury Mena shot "to kill" the victim.

"Mr Mena wasn't shooting to scare [the victim]," Mr Hickey said.

"He was shooting to kill him."

Lawyers for the accused trio argued there was no proof they were behind the attack.

Slade Howell, a defence barrister for Mena, told jurors they could not trust the evidence of the victim and the unnamed woman due to their unreliability.

Mr Howell noted the victim was a "target for retribution" because he was leaving a criminal gang, saying another person was after him at the time of the shooting.

Parlov's barrister, Keegan Lee, said both the victim and the unnamed woman were "practised liars".

The jury retired to deliberate on Thursday afternoon and, upon reaching the verdicts on Friday, was discharged.

Justice David Mossop adjourned the matter until December 8 for an administrative hearing.

All three offenders, whose first trial ended in a hung jury earlier this year, are behind bars on remand ahead of their sentencing at a later date.

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