By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A man has been given extra jail time after being caught out lying about his violent past in Dandenong Magistrates’ Court.
The 33-year-old Dandenong man pleaded guilty on 1 August to possessing cannabis, ecstasy and prescription drugs as well as breaching an intervention order.
At first, the man instructed his lawyer that a previous violent charge didn’t involve the same victim protected by the intervention order.
“It wasn’t family violence related,” the lawyer told the court.
However Magistrate Julie O’Donnell replied that the 2014 charges did include a contravention of a family violence safety notice.
She retorted “you can’t get more family violence related than that”.
After more instructions from the accused, the lawyer told the court that the false imprisonment charge related to a neighbour.
Police prosecutor Senior Constable Tess Holmes made further inquiries and then told the court that the charge, in fact, related to the ex-partner who had taken out four intervention orders against the accused.
Sen Const Holmes said on that occasion the accused had pushed over the victim while she held their baby son.
He then kicked her in the face and dragged her back in the house as she tried to flee, the court was told.
The baby was “knocked around” and bruised on the head several times during the bashing.
At the hearing, the man also pleaded guilty to not complying with a community corrections order claiming he was instead helping care for his child.
Sen Const Holmes told the court this claim was also untrue and that the Department of Human Services had told her that the man had been barred from seeing his child since February.
The man had been sentenced to his most recent CCO in March for possession of ice, cannabis, a prohibited weapon and a controlled weapon.
It was the third time he’d been convicted of breaching a CCO.
Ms O’Donnell said her “radar went up” when she first heard the man’s hollow claims.
She said she had concerns over the man’s drug history and violent past.
She sentenced him to nine months’ jail, without concurrency “given the circumstances here”.
