A Shepparton man assaulted his neighbour, who uses a wheelchair, and smashed his window with a rock that had a note attached to it.
Timothy Kenneth McDonald, 56, of Shepparton, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to assault, handling stolen goods, dealing with property suspected to be the proceeds of crime, three counts of damaging property, trespassing, committing an indictable offence while on bail and failing to appear in court.
Prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Chris Cole said McDonald kicked his neighbour, who uses a wheelchair, in the face, giving him a blood nose on January 12, 2022.
In a separate incident, McDonald threw a rock with a handwritten note wrapped around it through the same neighbour’s front window at about 4am on September 30, 2023.
Leading Sen Constable Cole said McDonald told police he was just trying to make him “act correct”, and when asked about the rock, told them “How else was I going to deliver it to him? Of course it was attached to a rock, I wasn’t going to slip it under his f***** door, was I?”
McDonald broke the cover of the man’s security light and hit the outside switch to the air-conditioning unit with a hammer after he was told to go away on September 6, 2023.
When asked how and why he broke the light, McDonald told police “with a hammer, my favourite weapon”, because he was “annoying me”.
McDonald also used a hammer to smash his neighbour’s front window on October 2, 2023, because he was unhappy about how he had been spoken to.
When police searched McDonald’s home on October 19, 2023, they found a jack hammer they say was stolen.
McDonald told police he suspected the jack hammer may have been stolen, as he had bought it for $100 but was aware it was worth significantly more.
McDonald’s defence solicitor, Alanna Noone, said her client was the “definition of an Aussie battler”, after he couldn’t attend his last court date because of a heart attack and was flown to Ballarat.
Throughout his life, McDonald had been through significant periods where he experienced significant violence, resulting in trauma, Ms Noone said.
She told the court McDonald struggled with his health and suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
Ms Noone said her client had a 30-year heroin addiction after being exposed in his early 20s, but he moved to Shepparton to get away from that, and it was “behind him”.
Magistrate Simon Zebrowski said the only reason McDonald wouldn’t be going to jail was because he had gone 12 months without reoffending.
Mr Zebrowski told McDonald that prison was a last resort, but given his age and criminal history, he was almost at that stage.
“If he wants to carry on like a pork chop at 56, (prison) is where he’s going to go,” he said.
“You can’t resolve disputes with hammers, and yes, you can slip notes under people’s doors.”
Mr Zebrowski fined McDonald $1000.