Dylan Downes, 30, of Seymour, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to 27 charges, including assaulting a police officer, theft, dangerous driving while pursued by police, possessing a controlled weapon, assault, abusing an animal, making a threat to kill and assaulting an emergency worker.
One of the incidents in January began when he kicked a dog at home in Seymour before dragging it by the collar into his car.
He later got into a police chase around the streets of Seymour that was called off by police because of his dangerous driving.
Later that evening, Downes stole $131.31 worth of petrol from a Seymour service station in a petrol-drive-off.
Police were later called to a Seymour house where Downes was displaying erratic behaviour.
He punched a police officer and was capsicum-sprayed before running away.
He later returned to the house and locked himself in a bathroom, saying he had a weapon.
After negotiations, Downes became compliant and was arrested and taken to Seymour Police Station.
In another incident, about 1am on February 21, Downes forced his way into a Keilor residence by smashing the window of a front room.
When confronted by people inside the house, he said, “You don’t know who I am, but I’m going to kill you”, before he was restrained by the house occupants.
He was violent and threatened police after they arrived on the scene, and had to be subdued by ambulance officers.
In August, he was making verbal threats on a train in Craigieburn and had to be capsicum-sprayed.
When he was taken to Broadmeadows Police Station, he kicked a custody officer.
Downes’ defence counsel Travis Brown told the court his client had had a difficult childhood but had not been in custody before.
He said a lot of this offending came in the context of drug and alcohol use and possibly mental health issues and asked for a community corrections order to form part of the sentence to help address these issues.
Magistrate Peter Mithen sentenced Downes to a total of eight months in prison — including three months for punching the police officer and two months for abusing the dog.
The 113 days he has spent in pre-sentence detention will count as time already served.
He also ordered Downes be put on a 13-month community corrections order after he was released from prison, with it to include programs to improve his drug and alcohol issues and mental health.
Mr Mithen said Downes had been assessed as high-risk in relation to further offending and encouraged him to work on his issues with drugs and alcohol.
“You need to face up to it and do something about it,” he said.
Downes was also fined $1200 on driving charges, and his driver’s licence was cancelled for 18 months.
“These are a serious set of offences,” Mr Mithen said.
“Punching a police officer in the face — the community won’t accept that, or the dog matter,” he said.
Mr Mithen was also particularly not impressed with Downes driving a car dangerously.
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