By Shelby Brooks
A man has been ordered to perform 150 hours of community service after he assaulted a neighbour in his Pakenham home while the victim’s two children were present.
Shannan Carrodus pled guilty to aggravated burglary for an incident on 3 November 2017 in which Carrodus punched his neighbour after forcing his way into the victim’s home.
The Victorian County Court heard that Carrodus had thrown a lit firecracker at his neighbours’ house, who he did not know prior to the incident.
The victim asked Carrodus “in strong terms” to stop throwing the crackers over the fence.
Carrodus, who at the time was 30, jumped the shared fence and begun swearing at the victim before fighting his way into the house through the laundry door.
The victim tried to close the door on Carrodus, who assaulted the victim by “swinging punches”.
The victims’ children, aged eight and 12 at the time, were also in the house.
The victim managed to wrestle Carrodus out of his house and shut the laundry door behind him, locking it.
The victim sustained grazes to his left thumb and inner fingers, and he and his children were distressed by the time police arrived.
In sentencing on 20 September, Judge Frank Gucciardo praised Carrodus for the way he had turned his life around in the last four years since the attack.
Carrodus now has a steady job, wife, young baby and mortgage on a farm property.
“You are rebuilding your life very positively,” Judge Gucciardo said.
“The promise you made to [your mum] that you would remain drug-free and turn your life around seems to be coming true.”
Although Judge Gucciardo described the incident as a “very serious offence”, he said the sentence was designed primarily to give Carrodus the opportunity to “keep going in the way that you have in the last few years”.
“It’s an opportunity that you have won for yourself, because otherwise, based on your priors and on this offending, which was based on just a stupid thing, you would be probably going to jail,” Judge Gucciardo said.
“In your case, I accept that you are firstly accepting the responsibility for the offending, acknowledged its wrongfulness and expressed remorse.
“Secondly, you have taken significant steps to reform… you have gone beyond mere abstinence from further offending in the last four years. I can conclude there has been real progress towards rehabilitation.
“I have no cause to think you’re going to go running around with your drug mates doing stupid things…if you did anything like that, I may as well give up this job because you have a background that is not going to go away but you’ve managed to get your life together.”
