By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A drug-addled man has wielded a vacuum cleaner pipe and threatened to kill his family during a “terrifying” encounter, a court has heard on 25 June.
The man had initially left the Cranbourne North house after his partner called police about 3am on 30 May, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court was told.
He returned just over an hour later, waking his nine-year-old child with his banging on the bathroom window.
Despite the partner’s attempts to keep him calm, he got inside the house.
He grabbed the vacuum cleaner pole with both hands in an “aggressive manner” and told her she was not to call the police again.
He told her that he would kill “all of us” prior to the police’s arrival.
By stealth, the wife called police and tried to remove the children into a car. He struck at the car, setting off its alarms.
He wrestled her and tried to snatch away the children.
On his arrest, the man later told police that he’d been awake for the past two-and-a-half days. He was remanded in custody up until the court hearing.
His lawyer Farah Banihali told the court the man had successfully completed a drug treatment order but recently suffered a meth relapse due to losing his courier job.
In the past, the man’s dishonesty offences were fuelled by heroin abuse, the court heard. There was no record of previous family violence or violent crime in general.
Magistrate Pauline Spencer said the children would have been “terrified” by the encounter.
The man was served a full intervention order to protect the children, and a limited-contact order for his ex-partner.
“Even though … I see you don’t have a history of violence or family violence, you’ve been high for a number of days (at the time of the offending) and you weren’t acting in a normal way.
“If you choose to put the drugs in your mouth you have to accept the consequences.”
Ms Spencer gave a sentence indication of three weeks’ time-served in custody plus a long-term corrections order.
She deferred sentence to release the man on the CISP bail program to help him get emergency accommodation.
He was set to next appear at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 23 July for judicial monitoring.
