A County Court judge has acknowledged the jail term given to a man involved in a home invasion bashing was “modest”, saying he was constricted by the fact he had already imposed lenient jail terms on the man’s three co-offenders.
Judge Roy Punshon said on Thursday it was unfortunate he had not been able to sentence together the four men involved in the bashing and kidnapping of a man from a Tarneit house in February last year.
But he had already jailed the instigator of the crime, Steven Wallis, 30, for three years and three months and was bound to ensure he imposed sentences of parity on the other men.
Judge Punshon told Michael Paul Licciardo, 30, he would be jailed for two years and six months, with a non-parole period of 15 months, a punishment the judge said was a “modest sentence”.
“I have constrained the sentence on you because your co-offenders were treated particularly leniently,” he said.
On February 5 last year Licciardo, Wallis and Troy Alderson repeatedly punched and kicked a man after kicking in the door of the man’s home. The trio were looking for a friend of the victim, who had had an argument with Wallis the previous week.
The victim, who was 21 at the time, curled into the foetal position as he was being assaulted and suffered significant bruising to his head, a cut behind an ear and scratches on his chest and back.
He was then led at knifepoint to a waiting car, shoved in the boot and driven to Truganina, where he was threatened with a knife and told he would have an eye cut out unless he told the men where his friend was. When he said he did not know he was told to run away.
Licciardo pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and intentionally causing injury, but was not charged with kidnapping offences.
The court heard he had had a disadvantaged upbringing, had struggled with alcohol, drug and mental-health problems and had told a doctor he was “profoundly ashamed” of his offending.
Judge Punshon said the father of two had to address his alcohol consumption if he was to rehabilitate himself.
Alderson, 36, was jailed for two years and six months and was sentenced with Wallis in April.
Michael Megne, 32, who drove the car on the day and stayed outside the house as the lookout for his three co-offenders, was sentenced last year to two years and nine months in jail.
