SLICE OF JUSTICE
Man who shot homemade gun at pizza driver jailed
A NORLANE man shot up a Pizza Hut delivery driver’s car with a deadly homemade shotgun before his own home security system provided police with clear footage of the crime.
Carl Christopher Antonio was jailed for 15 months in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday after pleading guilty to the shooting on Falcon St shortly after 9.30pm on April 6 this year.
A NORLANE man shot up a Pizza Hut delivery driver’s car with a deadly homemade shotgun before his home security system provided police with clear footage of the crime.
Carl Christopher Antonio was jailed for 15 months in Geelong Magistrates’ Court yesterday after pleading guilty to the shooting on Falcon St shortly after 9.30pm on April 6 this year.
The court heard the 35year-old tried to avoid police after the shooting but was mauled by a police dog during a siege at his home 11 days afterwards, and was later bashed by inmates in prison.
Magistrate Franz Holzer heard the CCTV footage obtained by police from the home showed Antonio, with his forearm tattoos on display, stagger to the footpath outside his home and fire a round from his homemade “slam gun” at the pizza driver’s Honda Civic.
“There could have been a fatality,” Mr Holzer said.
The pizza driver heard a loud bang as shotgun pellets blasted into the passenger-side of his car. “This damage was millimetres away from the vehicle’s window, and if the shotgun round had gone through the window, (it) would have directly hit the victim at close range,” police told the court.
However the driver escaped with just scratches on his arm. He drove around the corner to Robin Ave, inspected the damage, then made one more pizza delivery before returning to his workplace to phone police.
Witnesses told police Antonio was drug-affected and behaving erratically that night. But when officers attended the address the accused man jumped the fence and ran.
The CCTV hard drive was later obtained before Antonio held officers at bay for 90 minutes during a siege at his home on April 17.
Special Operations Group ended the stand-off when a police dog found the defendant hiding in a wardrobe and bit his arm. Antonio’s lawyer Katherine Rolfe told the court her client’s dog bite injury needed 78 stitches as a result.
He pleaded guilty to a string of charges, including counts of reckless conduct endangering death, recklessly causing injury, intentional property damage and firearms offences.
He also pleaded guilty to trespassing and stealing from a construction site at a Barwon Health facility in Norlane on March 1.
Mr Holzer sentenced Antonio to 15 months jail with a non-parole period of eight months.