COWARDLY, amateurish and wicked.
Those are the words a Brisbane District Court judge used to condemn the violent robbery and arson of Dunwich Post Office, as he jailed four of the perpetrators.
Another man who helped destroy evidence of the crime was also sentenced to jail, but was released immediately on parole.
Tiege Lanczy Kalen Burns, 26, Hunter Gabriel Murray-Costelloe, 19, Tama Moerara Edwards, 25, and Bruce Issiah Walker, 20, pleaded guilty to playing a part in the attack in the early hours of July 21, 2012.
The court heard the four men and Michael Coghill, who was sentenced in a Cairns court last year, conceived the plan to rob the post office while under the influence of alcohol, cannabis and methamphetamine.
Knowing that postmaster Brian Conlon was an auxillary firefighter, Walker and a juvenile lit decoy fires at Dunwich Secondary Department School to lure him from his house.
Once he responded to the school blaze, Burns, Murray-Costelloe, Edwards and Coghill broke into the residence adjoining the post office and intimidated Mr Conlon's wife, Hetty, who Judge Terence Martin said "lay paralysed with fear" in her bed.
Under threats of violence, Mrs Conlon was coerced into opening the post office safe, from which the men stole $23,000 in cash and valuables.
Murray-Costelloe then kicked Mrs Conlon in the face, while Burns doused the business with petrol and set it alight.
Mrs Conlon escaped the fire, but suffered severe facial injuries from the attack.
The post office and Mr and Mrs Conlon's home were gutted in the blaze.
Judge Martin described the plan as sophisticated, but said its execution was amateurish and marred by the gratuitous violence against Mrs Conlon and the torching of the post office.
The court heard the assailants dropped bags of coins, gloves and facial disguises during their escape, which were used by police to positively identify the offenders' DNA.
Burns and Murray-Costelloe were given the most severe sentences of the group, at eight and seven years' imprisonment each, to reflect their role in the attack.
Burns will be eligible for parole in January 2017, while Murray-Costelloe, who committed numerous property offences while on bail for the arson attack, could be out of jail as early as August 2016.
Edwards was recognised as having a lesser role in the robbery and was sentenced to five years' jail, with parole eligibility from September next year.
Walker, who did not partake but whose role Judge Martin described as "crucial" to the robbery, was sentenced to four years' jail. He will be eligible for parole in August.
Jacob Martin, 20, was also sentenced for attempting to burn evidence of the crime in a pine forest near Dunwich.
He was sentenced to 18 months' jail, but was released on parole immediately.
Outside the court, Martin told media he hoped the sentencing dissuaded other young men from committing similar offences.
"It's a very sad day, but I hope it's just a warning for every other young kid out there not to do criminal things," he said.
Judge Martin said the jail terms should dissuade young people on North Stradbroke Island from seeing the perpetrators as heroes.
"(The offence) was cowardly in the extreme," he said.
"There is no glory in spending time (in custody)."
