By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A 25-year-old car-jacking “thug” who crashed into the back of a tow-truck has been jailed.
Dung Yat, 25, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to charges including drug possession, carjacking, car theft and driving unlicensed.
Yat commandeered a car belonging to a fellow party-goer at a house at Doveton in August 2019.
He intimidated the victim to act as his unpaid “taxi-driver” – in what sentencing judge Richard Maidment on 13 July called an “act of thuggery”.
The driver dropped off Yat’s cousin in Cranbourne and drove Yat to Lynbrook to play pokies – before Yat changed his mind.
Back in Doveton, Yat demanded the keys and stole the vehicle.
He later returned to the party-house, awaking the victim to threaten him not to call police.
“I characterised your criminal record as showing that you acted as a thug over a period of years,” Judge Maidment said.
“The offence of car-jacking is another example of thuggery, of standing over somebody and forcing them to comply with your wishes, then taking possession of their vehicle and then intimidating them with a further threat of violence upon them.”
Soon after, the unlicensed Yat stole a car from a Wheelers Hill home and crashed it into the back of a tow-truck in Narre Warren.
The truck was travelling about 40km/h; the tow-truck driver described Yat’s speed as “flying”.
Yat then fled the scene, leaving behind the newly-damaged stolen car where a container of butanediol was later found.
His criminal history spans seven years, including past convictions for car theft.
He has been in custody since arrested in Oakleigh in October 2019.
He was a young man at “real risk of being institutionalised”, the judge noted.
Born in Egypt to Sudanese parents, Yat arrived in Australia in 2001.
Yat was expelled from school at Year 9 after falling heavily into ‘ice’, GHB and bad influences.
“No doubt that was continuing during your current offending.”
Sent to an international boarding school in Kenya at 14, he experienced the traumas of an erupting tribal war. He took refuge in mountains and a UN compound.
His traumatic childhood experiences had impacted his mental health, Judge Maidment noted.
This did not lessen his culpability for his offending, but would make jail more burdensome, the judge said.
Yat’s rehabilitation prospects were “seriously guarded”. But on the other hand, he was young and his family attested to his “many good qualities”.
“There’s plenty to be optimistic about, if you put your mind to it,” the judge said.
Yat was jailed for up to three-and-a-half years, with a non-parole period of two years, four months.
His term included 722 days already spent in pre-sentence custody.
