Robbery & Armed Robbery Charges in NSW

What is robbery?

Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 94: whosoever robs or assaults with intent to rob any person, or steals any chattel, money or valuable security from the person of another, is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.

Robbery is the point where a property offence becomes a violent one. At its core it is larceny plus force or fear: property is taken from a person, or in their presence, and the taking is accomplished by actual violence or by putting the person in fear. The property can be trivial — a phone, a wallet, a few dollars. It is the violence element, not the value, that gives the offence its gravity.

Section 94 also covers assault with intent to rob — nothing need actually be taken — and stealing from the person, the pickpocketing variant where property is taken from someone without violence or fear.

Robbery is not "stealing" — and the difference is years, not words

People charged after a street incident often describe what happened as stealing, and assume the matter belongs in the Local Court alongside shoplifting. The Crimes Act sees it differently. Stealing (larceny) is taking property; robbery is taking property from a person by violence or fear — and that single element moves the charge from the dishonesty offences into the serious violent offences, with maximum penalties measured in decades.

The distinction also works in the defence's favour. The violence must be connected to the taking — used to accomplish it, not merely occurring near it in time. Where a scuffle and a taking are genuinely separate events, the proper characterisation may be larceny and a distinct assault rather than robbery, and that re-characterisation can transform the sentencing exposure. It is one of the first questions to test against the evidence. See our Larceny / Stealing page for the property offence on its own.

The s 94–98 ladder

NSW grades robbery by the circumstances in which it is committed. Each rung carries its own maximum:

• Robbery or stealing from the person — s 94: 14 years;
• Robbery in circumstances of aggravation — s 95: 20 years;
• Robbery with wounding — s 96: aggravated robbery that wounds or inflicts grievous bodily harm — 25 years;
• Armed robbery, or robbery in company — s 97: 20 years; where the weapon is a dangerous weapon (such as a firearm), 25 years;
• Robbery with arms and wounding — s 98: armed or in company, with wounding or grievous bodily harm — 25 years.

Circumstances of aggravation for s 95 means that immediately before, at the time of, or immediately after the robbery, the offender uses corporal violence on any person, intentionally or recklessly inflicts actual bodily harm, or deprives any person of their liberty.

Two points about the ladder matter in practice. An offensive weapon is broader than people expect — an imitation firearm, a knife, a syringe, even an article carried to intimidate can qualify. And in company requires shared presence lending support to the robbery, not merely being nearby — the peripheral participant's position on the ladder, and within it, is often genuinely contestable.

Penalties and how courts sentence robbery

Robbery offences are dealt with on indictment, and the sentencing climate is stern: armed robbery is the subject of a guideline judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, and full-time imprisonment is the usual starting point for armed and aggravated variants, even for offenders without records.

What moves a sentence within that climate: the degree of planning, the nature of the weapon and how it was used, injury caused, the offender's role relative to others, the amount taken, and the subjective case — age, record, the circumstances that led to the offence (drug dependence features in many of these matters and is dealt with realistically by the courts when squarely addressed), and demonstrated rehabilitation. For the basic s 94 offence, and for genuinely peripheral roles, non-custodial outcomes remain available in appropriate cases. Every matter turns on its own facts.

Defences and answers to the charge

• Identification — robbery prosecutions lean heavily on CCTV, fleeting eyewitness identification and circumstantial reconstruction, all of it testable;
• No violence or fear connected to the taking — the conduct may be larceny, not robbery;
• Claim of right — a genuine belief in a legal entitlement to the property is inconsistent with the intent to steal;
• The ladder itself — the weapon was not offensive or dangerous as defined, the harm was not ABH or wounding, the accused was not "in company" in the legal sense;
• Duress — in the cases, more common than supposed, where a person is pressed into a role by others.

Which of these has real prospects is a judgement made on the brief, not the charge sheet — and made before the plea, not after.

How Lenz Legal approaches robbery charges

The ladder is the strategy. The first task in every robbery brief is to test whether the charge sits on the right rung — whether the aggravating circumstances are actually proved, whether the weapon meets the definition, whether the role alleged matches the footage — because a rung's difference is measured in years. Charge negotiation in robbery matters is unusually productive for exactly this reason, and it is most productive early, before positions harden.

Where identification or participation is genuinely in issue, the matter is prepared as a defended trial from the outset. Where the evidence is strong, the work turns to the plea: the rung, the role, the causes, and a subjective case that gives the court a real basis for the least severe available outcome.

If you have been charged, or police want to speak with you about a robbery, get advice before any interview. Identification cases in particular are frequently decided by what is said — or wisely not said — in that room.

Robbery — your questions answered