A car stolen by a drug addict in a terrifying home invasion was purchased by the victim's husband shortly before his death, a court heard.
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The elderly female victim was alone at her daughter's home in Warrnambool's Horne Road on January 26 last year when Andrew Harris, 39, of, Highton, let himself inside and began pacing her lounge room, the Warrnambool County Court was told on Thursday.
He told her he was high on ice and that there were "choppers in the sky looking for (him)".
He followed her to a bedroom before snatching the keys to her 2007 Hyundai i30 which was purchased by her husband shortly before he died.
The vehicle was found abandoned two days later.
In a victim impact statement referred to by judge Paul Higham, the woman said the vehicle "meant the world to me".
"Sometimes I think if you had taken all of my money, (that) would have been better," she said.
The woman was one of two elderly victims left traumatised by Harris that evening.
The court heard the second victim was also home alone when Harris held a pitch fork just centimetres from her face before stealing her 2016 Kia Cerato.
As he exited the property, he ripped the woman's landline from the hook so she couldn't call for help.
The judge said that victim wrote of her distress once Harris left her home.
"She was unable to dial police and she writes of lying in bed where she kept seeing your facing coming at her," he said.
Harris was sentenced on Thursday to four years and four months' jail after pleading guilty to unlawful assault with a weapon and two charges each of aggravated burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.
He has already served 379 days in custody on remand and must serve three years and two months before he is eligible for parole.
In sentencing, the judge said both victims had their "sense of safety and security" taken from them by Harris.
"They were both confronted by a strange man that was clearly drug affected," he said.
"This sort of offending destroys the sense of security that people are entitled to feel in their home."
The judge said he accepted the offender was manifesting "some symptoms of drug-induced psychosis" during the burglaries, but that it didn't mitigate the offending because Harris was a long-term drug addict that would have been "well aware of the adverse affects of (methamphetamine)".
He said Harris had attended drug detox centres more than 20 times in his life, each time relapsing after a short time.
"If you are to have a future, you must stop using methamphetamine," he said.
Judge Higham said if not for Harris' guilty plea, he would have been sentenced to seven years' jail.
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