Man’s jailing

By Kath Gannaway
A 21-year-old Healesville had to be jailed for a violent assault to send a message that such behaviour would not be tolerated, a Ringwood magistrate said last week.
Joshua Swords pleaded guilty before Magistrate Tony Parsons on Monday 14 December to a number of charges, including an assault on a 58-year-old Healesville man who, the court heard, was “glassed” in an unprovoked attack on 22 October.
At the time Swords was appealing against the severity of a sentence for a previous assault, the bashing of an 18-year-old Healesville man in March 2007.
The case was heard last August after a series of adjournments. The appeal was dismissed in the Melbourne County Court on Friday 11 December, with Judge Roy Punshon upholding the 12-month sentence, with a minimum of six to be served.
Judge Punshon also allowed a concession of two months in lieu of the 51 days Swords had already spent in jail awaiting the second assault trial.
The court heard that during the 2007 attack the victim was first assaulted in the main street of Healesville by Swords who punched him twice knocking him to the ground. He was punched and kicked again half an hour later in an attack that left him unconscious by the side of the road.
“You got a sentence of 12 months in August and while out on appeal you offended again,” Magistrate Parsons said in sentencing Swords.
“You violently belted a man in the face, smashed a bottle in his face while he was walking home.”
Mr Parsons said the man was traumatised by the attack and probably would be for the rest of his life.
“I have to send a message to the community that it is unacceptable that anyone should behave this way, and to you that you may not continue to behave this way,” he said.
Detailing a family history of drug and alcohol abuse and violence, and Swords’ own involvement with drugs and alcohol, he counselled him to use his time in jail to break the link between his childhood experience and his future.
He sentenced Swords to 18 months’ jail, with 12 months to be served before being eligible for parole.
“You now have a 30-month sentence,” he told Swords. “It’s a long time and you need to use it to think about what you are going to do for the rest of your life.”
Swords was also fined $500 and $600 after pleading guilty to two counts of criminal damage in relation to windows smashed in Healesville’s main street on 5 January this year.
Erica Hradsky, the mother of the first victim, said the sentence was far too lenient and didn’t reflect the impact such assaults had on the lives of the victims.
She also hit out at the system which, she said, allowed adjournment after adjournment, keeping violent offenders on the street.
“He is entitled to play the system because that’s what the law allows, but if he hadn’t been let out, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to assault someone else,” she said.