A LOCAL man has been sentenced to three months in jail after staging a bank hold-up.
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Earlier this year David Hamilton-Kurtzman, 45, had walked into a bank and handed the teller a note, demanding money and explaining he had a gun.
Upon sentencing in the Griffith Local Court on Wednesday, Magistrate Shane McAnulty acknowledged that Mr Hamilton-Kurtzman had never been in trouble with the law before, except for a minor traffic matter, and that at the time of the hold-up he had "lost grasp on reality".
The magistrate said Mr Hamilton-Kurtzman had been "delusional", thinking the hold-up would be "a bit of a joke".
"You simply can't walk into a bank with a note 'This is a hold-up'," Mr McAnulty said. "This is a serious matter and a very troubling thing to happen for the teller.
"A lot of bank staff who have had something similar happen to them never return to work." Mr McAnulty said with his sentence he took into consideration good prospects of rehabilitation with the help of family support.
Mr Hamilton-Kurtzman was sentenced to a non-parole period of three months and will be entitled to be released on parole in September, after already spending six weeks in police custody.