Man jailed for vicious attack

Nightclub victim hit with glass bottle

A MAN who viciously attacked another man inside a Geelong nightclub will spend the next four months behind bars.

Former boxer Jarryd Primmer was intoxicated when he “sized up” another man at a St James nightclub before striking him with a glass bottle.

The Lovely Banks man yesterday pleaded guilty at the Geelong Magistrates’ Court to the glassing.

His “unnecessarily violent” actions occurred less than a year after his twin brother Kristopher Primmer narrowly avoided jail for a bloody attack outside another Geelong club.

Yesterday the court heard the 27-year-old boxer-turnedwrestler started speaking to his victim near the bar about 3.30am before he started thrusting his groin and intimidating him.

A police summary filed by Criminal Investigation Unit detective Senior Constable Kevin Beaumont said the victim tried to use humour to “defuse the situation” but Primmer persisted.

“(Primmer said) ‘ You look like a heavyweight, you’re in my weight class — let’s fight,” Sen-Constable Beaumont said.

Primmer, who the court heard was significantly bigger than the victim, smashed a beer bottle on the man’s face, causing severe bleeding.

The force of the action knocked the victim backwards.

The court heard the man was bleeding profusely and taken to the Geelong hospital.

He had serious neck lacerations, which required stitches, punctures near his eye socket and bruising.

Primmer was arrested and interviewed, at which point he told officers his first instinct when talking to the man was to “just hit him straight away”.

Primmer told police he had no regrets about how he handled the incident.

A lawyer acting for Primmer told the court his client had an intellectual disability and pleaded for the court to place him on a community corrections order.

But magistrate Michael Coghlan said the Supreme Court had made it very clear that all glassing attacks should result in a jail term.

Labelling the incident “unnecessarily violent”, Mr Coghlan said the community did not need extreme, alcoholfuelled attacks occurring at nightclubs.

“You used a bottle … and you smashed it against the side of his neck and face area, causing serious injuries.,” the magistrate said.

Mr Coghlan said there was no evidence the defendant acted in self-defence.

“I don’t think that (a CCO) properly reflects community expectations,” he said.

Mr Coghlan jailed Primmer for four months, put him on a community corrections order after his release, and banned him from entering the Geelong CBD for the next year.