Daniel Joshua Reid: Bunbury man gets suspended fine for smashing letterbox ‘while standing up for girlfriend’

A Bunbury man has avoided being hit with a fine despite arming himself with a wooden instrument and smashing an Eaton man’s letterbox while yelling threats, allegedly in defence of his ex-girlfriend. Daniel Joshua Reid appeared in Bunbury Magistrates Court on Thursday where he was handed a $1200 fine that was suspended for eight months after pleading guilty to charges of damaging property and being armed in a way that may cause fear. The court was told Reid received a phone call from his ex-partner at 11.45am on August 4 asking for help after she alleged she had been assaulted by another ex-partner of hers. After Reid travelled to his ex-partner’s house to find nobody home, he was then instructed by the woman to attend an address in Eaton. After attending the address Reid armed himself with an instrument, understood to have been a pool cue, and stood in the driveway waving it around and yelling threats towards the man inside the house. During this time, Reid used the same instrument to smash a green metal letterbox belonging to the male occupant, who called police. When police arrived, officers requested Reid to drop the instrument, to which he complied but dropped it down a drain. The instrument was never recovered. During a police interview after his arrest, Reid admitted the offending and told officers he was “trying to help” his ex-partner who was in distress. In submissions, Reid told the court he could only hear his ex-partner screaming during the first phone call he received on the day of offending and he also took her to the hospital after the alleged ordeal after noticing bruises on her neck. However, it was not known if the woman pressed charges over the alleged assault. In sentencing, Magistrate Benjamin Tyers said while the courts do not condone people taking vigilante action and taking the law into their own hands, he accepted Reid had “acted quickly” and was “of reasonable belief his ex-partner had been assaulted”. “You were standing up for her,” he told Reid. “You reacted quickly rather than sitting and brooding about it or calculating a way to seek revenge later.”