By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A PERSISTENT family violence offender has had his sentence deferred and been banned from using a mobile phone while he completes 28 days rehab for ice use.
On Monday 7 September the 21-year-old Pakenham man pleaded guilty to four charges including stalking and harassing his ex-partner after police withdrew 23 charges.
He had spent the previous seven days in custody for re-offending soon after receiving CREDIT bail at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 27 August.
The court was told the man sent scores of abusive text messages and attended the victim’s home in breach of a family violence intervention order three times in August.
At the time, the accused was on a community corrections order for similar offences, police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Gary van der Poel said.
While taking some tarps from the property on 25 August, he called the ex-partner a “fat f…ing slut”.
He texted her that she should stop being a “child” after she threatened to call police.
The accused re-attended the victim’s home at 1.30am on 29 August – two days after being arrested and bailed by the court.
On that occasion, he knocked on the front door and called the victim eight times until she answered the phone.
During the call, the victim heard laughing and speech she couldn’t decipher.
At the property, he left empty Jim Beam and Coke cans – in reference to her drinking preferences – and copies of her “love letters” to him.
His lawyer told the court the man’s family had taken a mortgage out on their home to pay for his private residential rehab as a “last-ditch option before he hits mainstream prison”.
The lawyer said it wasn’t clear if the man’s substance abuse was self-medicating for his “significant” depression and relationship breakdown.
“It would be simplistic to say he keeps breaching court orders, he has to go to jail.
“I appreciate he’s already had a number of opportunities. At 21 years old, he’s probably worth one last go.”
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said he’d bail the man on condition that he was immediately transferred to the southern Melbourne rehab centre for 28 days.
The court was told the facility was supervised 24/7, and secured with locked doors, windows and CCTV.
The man was ordered not to possess a mobile phone in that time and to comply with a 12-month full intervention order banning contact with his ex-partner and her two children.
The man is the biological father of one of her children.
Mr Vandersteen accepted the man’s problems with depression and drug use but not their link to his offending.
“We’re sitting back and waiting to see if you engage or don’t engage.
“I may defer (the sentence) again and have the sentence hanging over your head.”
The man is scheduled to re-appear at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 6 October.
