The family of a man left in a coma for five weeks after being brutally bashed during an armed robbery in Waverley has told a court of the stress they felt while fearing that he would die from his injuries.
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The victim - who was 47 at the time - was ambushed by a group of four men after he was lured to a unit in Waverley on the night of January 9 last year.
One of those men, Clinton Charles Wilson, 27, appeared in the Supreme Court in Launceston on Tuesday after pleading guilty to aggravated armed robbery and committing an unlawful act intended to cause bodily harm, but continued to dispute some of the facts of the offending.
The court was told the group of four knew the victim was in possession of large amounts of cash and the drug ice, so they asked him to come to the unit where they intended to rob him.
Once the drugs and cash were on the table, the four men threw the victim to the floor and punched his head, face and body repeatedly, while one beat him with a wooden chair leg.
Electrical tape was also tied around the victim's head and neck. A final kick to his face caused the victim to lose consciousness, and he was dragged outside and dropped in the tray of his own ute, which was parked outside.
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Wilson drove the ute towards Waverley lake, but the victim regained consciousness and fell onto the road where he remained in a pool of blood with critical injuries before he was later found by passers-by, struggling to breathe.
Wilson dumped the victim's ute in the lake.
The victim's cash and ice was distributed among the attackers, including Wilson, who admitted he "grabbed a couple hundred dollars and a couple of points of ice".
The victim suffered multiple facial fractures, a collapsed lung, bleeding in the lung, a fractured rib and hypoxia. He was in intensive care for an extended period and an induced coma for five weeks.
Wilson and two other co-accused were arrested three days later.
In a police interview, Wilson said he "had a few too many eccies, it became a blur from there" and he did not think the others were serious when they suggested robbing the victim. Wilson claimed his co-accused - none of whom have pleaded guilty charged with similar offences - were the main aggressors.
The victim's family tendered a statement to the court, in which they outlined the harm it had caused his mother, who spent weeks fearing her son would die.
Wilson provided his legal counsel with a document outlining his disagreements with the prosecution facts, which will be discussed at his next hearing.
He will appear in court again on November 28.