By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A hammer-wielding intruder who wreaked $130,000-plus of havoc by destroying ATMs, glass displays and store windows at Dandenong Plaza last year has faced sentence.
Julian Koonwhye, 32, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to 12 counts of destroying property as well as aggravated burglary and committing the rampage while on bail.
Koonwhye broke into the shopping centre by smashing a hole in the plaza’s entrance windows with a hammer and climbing through on the night of 12 June, sentencing judge Anne Hassan said.
He then went on a $138,000 damage spree, smashing four automated teller machines (ATMs) at Commonwealth Bank and ANZ.
He also destroyed glass display cabinets at ShareTea, Green Village Poultry, MyFone Repairs and a Kids At Play children’s play machine.
Shopfront windows at ANZ, Bloom Hearing Specialists, Angus and Coote, and Foot Locker were also attacked.
Finally, he smashed Aldi supermarket’s front window by throwing the hammer into it.
Koonwhye sat on a bench outside the store, where police arrested him. He was deemed unfit for police interview.
In sentencing on 17 February, Judge Hassan noted CCTV showing Koonwhye’s “aggressive” and “highly disinhibited” behaviour while causing a “great deal of damage”.
At the time, he was mentally unwell, as well as fuelled by drugs, the judge said.
Koonwhye had just been released on bail from Thomas Embling Hospital and was “unable to cope in the community”.
He reported that he started feeling unsafe at his boarding house, and used ice to stop falling asleep while people were trying to hurt him.
He claimed he committed the Plaza offences to “go back to the safety of prison”, Judge Hassan noted.
Judge Hasan found his long and complex mental illness was linked to his offending, which reduced his culpability, and that his poor mental health was also impacted by drug abuse.
Judge Hassan said his rehab would be difficult, his risk of reoffending was “ongoing” with relevant priors, including property damage, burglaries and CCO breaches.
Koonwhye was jailed for 250 days – which he has already served since his arrest.
It is followed by a “short but relatively intense” community corrections order for 12 months.
The supervised CCO includes 200 hours of volunteer work and rehab treatment, as well as judicial monitoring.
