A man who punched a good Samaritan and threw a traffic cone at a police car tried to get a lenient punishment by citing his trauma suffered from when he was rescued through rubble.
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Silivelio Malo Sione, 31, in September 2020 chased a Raiders Gungahlin Club patron around the pokies before landing a punch to the victim's face then stealing his cigarettes after he fell onto the ground, the ACT Magistrates Court heard on Monday.
The trigger was the victim holding up a club membership card, left unattended at a machine, and asking others whose card it was.
Nine months later, police saw Sione in Holt stumbling on a road and yelling at another vehicle before they pulled up to him.
Sione, a Dunlop resident, threw a traffic cone at the unmarked police car, denting its roof and causing more than $2000 in damage.
He yelled at police while being unsteady on his feet, had bloodshot eyes and slurred his words.
Police asked him several times for his names to which he said "Mark Sione".
In between those two incidents, he failed to appear in court as part of his bail.
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Sione faced sentencing on Monday after pleading guilty to assault, property damage, failing to provide name and failing to appear in court.
His lawyer argued for leniency, saying he suffered PTSD after a workplace site collapsed and he had to be rescued through rubble.
Magistrate Glenn Theakston dismissed Sione's lawyer argument for an intensive corrections order (ICO), a community-based sentence, that was supported by a report that found the defendant suitable for such an order.
Mr Theakston instead sentenced Sione to three months' jail, backdated to December 14 to account for his pre-sentence custody.
"The violence in these matters is simply too acute, too serious to be dealt with by way of an ICO," Mr Theakston said.
The magistrate said that while a nexus between Sione's PTSD and his offending existed, the lesser sentence would not provide enough deterrence for him or the community.
Mr Theakston also said Sione's criminal history did not help him with his "long history of violence going back some time well before the workplace accident".
The prosecutor in the case argued that the assault was unprovoked and that such an attack in what is supposed to be a safe space causes concerns to the community.
She also said Sione giving police a fake name was him trying to evade them and that he had not shown remorse and acceptance of his offending.
She outlined his criminal history that involved similar offending in the ACT and NSW, including 12 assault convictions.
Sione, whose family was in court to support him, will be released on March 13, two days before his birthday.
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