Jail sentence for arrest kick
A 32-year-old man who threw a glass bottle and a brick at a taxi and, on a separate occasion, kicked a police officer to avoid being arrested, has been jailed for nine months.
Clayton Bryce Michael, 32, was sentenced in Bunbury Magistrates Court last week, having already pleaded guilty to one count of damaging property and one count of obstructing a public officer.
Michael was on his final week of a suspended prison term when he committed the obstruct public officer offence, subsequently breaching the order.
The court was told that in October police went to a property in Glen Iris to locate Michael.
A woman answered the door and let the officers inside and told them Michael was in the kitchen.
When police did not locate him in the kitchen they searched a room and found Michael hiding behind a bed.
He actively resisted police arrest while the two women in the house tried to pull police officers off him.
During the struggle, Michael kicked out and struck an officer on his knee.
His defence lawyer said he felt he had been treated roughly and that his partner, who was in the back of the court room to support him, said it was rough.
“When he was on the ground he told police his wrists hurt … he said he had been dragged around and he tried to calm himself but got frustrated,” his lawyer said.
Magistrate David MacLean said it was no excuse to kick an officer and said it heightened the seriousness or the offence.
On another occasion in February, Michael threw a glass bottle and a brick at a taxi with the intent of scaring someone in the taxi.
He was also charged with breaching a family violence restraining order, but Magistrate MacLean ruled it was at the lower end of the scale because the person made contact with him.
In sentencing Magistrate MacLean said this offending was not out of character for Michael, but accepted the mitigating factors which were his early plea of guilt and his upbringing, which he described as not supportive.
He was sentenced to nine months and one day imprisonment.
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