By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A would-be car-jacker, who seriously injured a driver in a “frightening” broad-daylight stabbing at a Noble Park shopping strip has been jailed.
Panayotis Tsoukalas, 37, of Noble Park, attacked an “innocent man”, who was on his way home from a grocery errand in Camellia Avenue just before noon on 26 March 2022.
The man stopped his Corolla at the T-intersection of Elonera Road and Camellia Avenue when Tsoukalas ran and opened the driver’s door.
With a knife in hand, Tsoukalas tried to remove the driver and cut at the seatbelt around the driver’s shoulder.
With the seatbelt still around the driver’s waist, Tsoukalas stabbed him in the chest.
In shock, the driver released his foot from the brake. His moving car narrowly missed an oncoming vehicle.
The victim then drove home, noticing a “lump of flesh” protruding from his wound.
He was later taken by ambulance to The Alfred hospital with a small collapsed lung and internal bleeding.
Police arrested Tsoukalas and a woman companion nearby.
“Is he OK? The guy who got stabbed in the car?” Tsoukalas said during a police interview.
“Was the guy in the car stabbed?” a police officer replied.
“Oh nothing, I must be getting it mixed up with something else,” Tsoukalas said.
At that stage, police were unaware of the victim and released Tsoukalas pending further enquiries.
He was later arrested at a home in Noble Park, in breach of a full intervention order.
In the following police interview, he claimed he didn’t remember the attempted car-jacking.
Tsoukalas pleaded guilty to aggravated car-jacking and causing serious injury recklessly, as well as breaching a full intervention order
In sentencing on 22 February, Judge Trevor Wraight said it was a “gratuitous” and “frightening attack committed against an innocent man in public”.
The victim, who was unknown to Tsoukalas, described long-lasting impacts, the judge noted.
Whenever he saw the scar on his chest, it brought the attack back to him, the victim stated to the court.
The Greek-born Tsoukalas, a father of two who was raised in Noble Park, had reportedly little insight into his long history of drug abuse.
He had been using meth daily at the time.
With relevant violent and weapon-related priors, the offender’s rehabilitation prospects were “guarded”.
Judge Wraight accepted that prison would weigh more heavily on Tsoukalas due to his “complex” mental health issues.
But the offending would “not be tolerated” and would be “met with stern consequences”.
Tsoukalas was jailed for six-and-a-half years, with a four-and-a-half-year non-parole period.
His term includes 328 days already served in pre-sentence detention.
