By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A MAN has been banned from licenced venues for a year after injuring several people in a series of drunken assaults in the past year.
Akol Akol, 24, faced 23 charges at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 23 November, including drunkenly assaulting his ex-partner one afternoon on Mills Reserve, Noble Park.
On 9 August, Akol threatened to choke the victim, after she smashed his whiskey bottle on the ground during an argument.
She fled to her cousin’s home where she and her cousin locked herself in the bedroom.
Akol then smashed a window at the front door with his foot, climbed inside and tried to talk to the victim and cousin through the bedroom door.
At 4am earlier that day, police attended a family violence incident in Sunbury in which Akol held a fork in a threatening manner and talked about killing the possums in the roof.
During his rant, he awoke a 12-week-pregnant relative and punched her to the head and stomach, as her one-year-daughter lay in a cot next to her bed.
Akol then punched a male to the face, and put two holes in a plaster wall in his efforts to punch and kick the victim.
Both victims were taken to hospital by ambulance.
Akol, who had a significant problem with alcohol since he was 16, was also charged with intentionally causing injury for punching a moving skateboard rider’s face on a Swanston Street footpath.
At the time, Akol was observedly affected by alcohol. He told police “it shouldn’t be intentionally because I was drunk”.
On two nights, he stole more than $290 of hard liquor from three bottle shops in Altona and Melbourne CBD.
Magistrate Gerard Bryant said Akol was intelligent but had a difficult life in Yemen and Uganda, growing up subject to threats of violence and bullying, and without a proper father figure.
It had led to Akol’s “real difficulty” in disciplining himself and knowing the impact of his behaviour on others, Mr Bryant said.
He convicted Akol and placed him on a community corrections order that banned him from alcohol-licenced venues for 12 months.
Akol’s 107 days in remand custody was treated as time served in jail.
“I think it’s in his interest, his family’s interest and the community interest if he’s nowhere near where alcohol is being served,” Mr Bryant said.
“You’re one of those people where one drink is too many and 100 is not enough.
“You’ve got to ask yourself the question whether you want to make alcohol a part of your life.”
Mr Bryant asked Akol if he could go 12 months without alcohol.
“I’ll give it my best,” Akol replied.
The magistrate said: “If you don’t make a change you’ll be spending the next 5-10 years in and out of prison”.
