A Ballarat man has been sentenced to six months jail in the Bendigo Magistrates' Court over a violent attack on his wife's alleged lover in Bendigo in 2021.
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David Alfred Wood pleaded guilty in court on Wednesday, December 20 to one charge of recklessly causing serious injury over the assault, which left its victim with a broken jaw that required repeated surgery.
Defence lawyer Heidi Keighran had successfully argued the matter could be heard in the Magistrates' - rather than the higher level County - court.
She also argued the exemplary character of her 55-year-old client meant his sentence should not involve a term of imprisonment.
However, Magistrate Trieu Huynh agreed with John Goetz for the prosecution that a term of imprisonment was appropriate.
An alternative sentence that would see Wood completing unpaid community work under a community corrections order was not sufficiently punitive, he believed.
'You've been f***ing my wife'
The court heard that on Thursday, October 14, 2021 the then 52-year-old victim had been working alone at his Quarry Hill business when he walked to the front of the office around 5pm to check for customers and noticed a white Landcruiser parked nearby.
Wood then emerged from behind a boundary hedge and walked towards him with his hands behind his back, saying, "How are you going, mate? Do you do these monuments, do you?".
When the victim told Wood he recognised him, Wood said, "Yep, you've been f***ing my wife".
The victim responded, "Yep, that's me" before Wood hit him at least four times to the left side of the head with a wooden axe handle he had been holding behind his back.
The victim believed he was hit twice to the temple, once below his left eye and once below his jaw.
The assault continued in the driveway of the property, with Wood at some point having his hands around the victim's throat, trying to get him to the ground, and the victim punching Wood to try to get him off.
When Wood did get off the victim, he walked back to his car and yelled at the man to "stay away" before driving off.
A woman who had been passing by and witnessed the assault tended to the victim, who was then taken to Bendigo hospital by his daughter.
Broken jaw required surgery
As a result of the assault the victim suffered a broken jaw, which limited his capacity to opening his mouth to just two to 3cm and left him unable to chew over a period of several weeks.
The injury required two surgeries under general anaesthesia, and the insertion of a metal plate with wires running along the bottom of his teeth.
The victim also suffered cuts to his upper lip and chin, with the latter requiring stitches, grazes to his face and redness and tenderness to his ribs.
Text message contained details of assault
Four days later, on October 18, the victim received a text message from Wood's then-wife, forwarding a message from Wood to her that detailed the assault and said he had gone to the victim's workplace prior to October 14 and sat in his car with a gun.
When Wood was arrested by appointment at Ballarat police station in May 2022 he admitted to going to the victim's workplace but said the other man had thrown the first punch and he had been forced to defend himself.
He denied having a length of timber he used as a weapon and claimed the text message he had sent his wife was untrue.
His reason for going to the business that day was "to make it clear ... my kids know that their mother's been sleeping with a bloke in a motel," he told police, and he wanted to "make sure ... [the victim] was aware of the trouble and hurt he caused and he needed to ... stay away for a while".
Wood said he hadn't intended to injure anyone.
Subsequently he changed his story and pleaded guilty to the charge.
Attack was 'out of character', defence argues
The court heard Wood had run a commercial building company for more than 25 years, had not been in trouble with the law before or since the assault and had abided by the conditions of a 2022 intervention order protecting the victim.
In character references provided to the court, including from his three children, he was described as kind, caring and gentle and someone who "puts himself out" for others.
According to Ms Keighran, Wood was remorseful, regretful, distressed and embarrassed about the "out of character" crime.
Also tendered to the court were victim impact statements from the victim and his daughter detailing psychological and emotional distress as a consequence of Wood's actions.
They did not want these to be read out in court.
'Vicious, violent and sustained' attack
In sentencing, Mr Huynh described Wood's attack as "vicious, violent and sustained" and "something the community just can't tolerate".
The assault had an element of premeditation, was unprovoked and involved repeated blows to a vulnerable part of the victim's body, he said.
With "such situations of family disharmony ... not uncommon in the community", general deterrence was a very important factor in sentencing.
The maximum penalty for the offence was 15 years in jail, and but for Wood's guilty plea he would have been sentenced to nine months jail, the magistrate said.
After the sentence was handed down, Ms Keighran immediately applied for appeal bail on behalf of her client, which was granted.
Wood, who had never been in custody before, was bailed to live at a Mount Helen address.
The existing intervention order protecting the victim was extended for a further five years.
