A young man involved in two violent smash-and-grab armed robberies on Melbourne jewellery stores has been spared jail because a judge ruled the community had more to gain by him continuing his rehabilitation outside prison.

Akon Mawien was 18 when he, Maker Mayoum and a younger teenager disguised their faces with material and used hammers to smash their way into stores in central Melbourne and Coburg within two hours on July 7, 2016, terrorising customers and staff, stealing stock and causing damage worth a combined $200,000.



Mawien had lived a blemish-free life since arriving in Australia as a young child refugee from South Sudan with his aunt and cousins, succeeded in his studies and became an outstanding cricketer on the verge of playing for Victoria at junior level.

But the combination of injuries that halted his cricket, his distressing discovery that his immediate family were still in South Sudan and his inability to find a job left him aimless for the first time in his life, and under Mayoum's influence he used the drug ice.