A Shepparton man who attacked his friend and left him lying near death in a pool of his own blood has been jailed.
Justin Thomas Webb, 46, pleaded guilty in the Shepparton County Court to a charge of recklessly causing injury.
The court heard Webb and his victim were at Webb’s house in Poplar Ave in Shepparton when Webb attacked the other man with a “sharp-edged weapon” that may have been a knife or scissors, and tried to “cook his head” in a sandwich press on February 22, 2020.
Webb then went to a neighbour’s house where he told them, “I’ve just woken up and my friend’s in a pool of blood”, the court was told.
The court heard Webb had been seen by a neighbour with blood on his shirt earlier and had showered before raising the alarm.
In handing down his sentence, Judge Douglas Trapnell said when police attended the house the next day they found “blood splatters on the walls, a mop head covered in blood, overturned furniture and broken household items”.
“The most remarkable thing was the amount of blood on the kitchen walls, floor, benchtops, cupboards and other surfaces,” Judge Trapnell said.
“In any view, this was a violent attack on the victim.”
The victim was left with 32 injuries to the head and body, including a fractured skull, two bleeds to the brain, broken ribs and lacerations to the pancreas, liver and aorta.
The court heard from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine’s Dr Maaike Moller that the victim very likely would have died if not for timely medical intervention.
Judge Trapnell said in a police interview Webb said the attack had come about because the victim had touched him on his genitals.
He also said he had “taken a large amount of Valium and opiates, which knocked him out”.
He also used methamphetamines that day.
Webb also told police he had no recollection of what had happened.
“I don’t know if I’ve done it. I don’t know if someone else has done it,” he said in the interview.
However, Judge Trapnell said Webb told a neighbour later he “thought it was a dream”.
“All you remember is trying to cook the victim’s head in a sandwich press,” Judge Trapnell said.
The judge said in sentencing he took into account that Webb had a borderline intellectual disability that had an effect on his moral culpability in the attack.
However, he said the use of drugs had played a “significant role”.
Webb was sentenced to four years and four months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years.
Judge Trapnell ruled that the 1050 days spent in pre-sentence custody would be reckoned as time already served.