By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A BERWICK carpenter has driven an axe into a customer’s polished floorboards and thrown a pie and squirted tomato sauce over a neighbour’s house during a two-month spate of bizarre behaviour, a court has heard.
On 3 June, Paul Roman, 48, demanded pre-payment from an elderly Mt Waverley resident for renovations to an investment property.
Among a flurry of abusive, vulgar messages, Roman told the woman’s son by text message: “If you don’t pay $3800, I can do a lot of damage in three minutes.”
On the morning of 4 June, Roman entered the woman’s house using a spare key, opened cement bags and spread the dust inside.
He then smashed an axe into floorboards and “left it sticking out of the floor”, police prosecutor Senior Constable Tess Davison told Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 9 November.
Roman also pleaded guilty to a litany of charges involving his Berwick neighbours, including stalking, criminal damage, threats to kill and indecent exposure.
The court heard that one of the neighbours had moved to South Australia as a result of six months of harassment.
Roman ignored a personal safety order on 2 June, yelling foul abuse as the neighbour collected belongings.
He tried to block the neighbour’s vehicle from leaving, telling him he’d “hunt you down” and running after the vehicle for about 100 metres.
The neighbour told police he was fearful for himself, his wife and children’s safety.
Roman told police he’d mistaken the neighbour for the house owner, and denied he’d threatened to kill the neighbour.
On 19 May, Roman was riled by a neighbour complaining to police about his loud music.
Roman, who had been drinking, threw stones at the neighbour’s house, sprayed the house with a hose and made threats to the neighbour.
Roman then turned up the music louder and danced on his front porch, flashing his genitals and buttocks at the victim.
Later, Roman threw a pie and squirted tomato sauce on the victim’s house, and pushed over the neighbour’s brick letter box.
The neighbour called triple-zero when Roman held up a circular saw in front of his house.
Police observed a house covered in sauce and a smashed letter box, which Roman said he’d accidentally dislodged by tripping over it.
In June, the same neighbour – protected by a safety order – complained about Roman pulling items out of the neighbour’s bins and strewing them across the road, nature strip and yard.
Roman then smashed items on the road, and wrote obscenities on wooden boards.
He later told police he did it because the neighbour was a “bogan”.
Roman was also charged after threatening to slash the throat of a complaining eBay customer who had bought stolen plumbing tools from the accused.
It was accepted Roman had auction receipts for the items and nothing to do with their theft in 2013.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen said Roman’s behaviour was “appalling” and “terrifying” to his victims, though it was largely due to poor mental health.
Mr Vandersteen noted Roman hadn’t offended for nine years, and hadn’t reoffended since undergoing a community treatment order in June.
“I’m certain you wouldn’t have reoffended if you had been well.”
Roman was put on an 18-month community-corrections order including supervision, alcohol and mental health treatment with possible referral to Forensicare’s Problem Behaviour Clinic.
