A SURF Beach man who damaged a car and illegally entered a property in a late night drunken stupor has appealed against the severity of the penalty he received in Batemans Bay Local Court on Monday.
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Michael David Smith, 20, of Parker Avenue, pleaded guilty to entering enclosed land without lawful excuse and damaging property. He was convicted and fined $500 on both charges. His appeal will be heard at Nowra District Court on October 7.
Police facts state Smith climbed over a brick fence in the rear of a yard in Parker Avenue at 10.40pm on June 21, went to a rear security door of the unit and tried to open it only to find it locked.
At the time the occupants thought they were being broken into.
Smith then scaled another fence, and went to the front door, knocking over a pot plant in the process.
He confronted the occupants and had a “verbal confrontation”. After this he walked out to a car on the nature strip and kicked the front left headlight combination, smashing the indicator lens, before kicking the right side combination for no result.
He then went to another Parker Avenue unit, approached the door and left a short time later after asking for his mother.
At 11.51pm police attended the address and saw Smith staggering around the common driveway. He walked to the nature strip where he was spoken to by police, who believed he was clearly affected by alcohol and was “in need of physical protection”.
The officers detained him as an intoxicated person in the rear caged section of their vehicle, “whereby on five occasions he commenced the involuntary, forceful expulsion of the contents of his stomach” before he rolled in his vomit.
Meanwhile, police took statements from two witnesses.
At 1.56am, he regained his faculties at Batemans Bay Police Station and was bewildered by the allegations against him.
Smith was interviewed by police on July 3 and was polite, apologetic and cooperative.
No criminal infringement notices were found on his record.
The court heard that Smith had very little recollection of the event between when he drank five small glasses of wine and when he was in the police wagon at the police station, and that it had been a “major lapse of judgement”.
Magistrate Doug Dick told Smith he realised it was not in his character to do something like this, but he “drank to the point that you entered someone’s yard and damaged a motor vehicle”.
“It is my job to punish you and send a clear message about this sort of behaviour,” Mr Dick said.
