Car sale leads to attack
Sleeping criminal busted for wine bottle assault
A DRUNK Corio man threw a wine bottle at a terrified woman before falling asleep in her driveway during a bizarre crime spree.
Leigh Fausett, 45, narrowly missed the woman when he threw the empty bottle of wine at her car in September this year, the Geelong Magistrates Court was told on Thursday.
Fausett, who pleaded guilty to criminal damage and assaulting an emergency services worker, had been staying with his mother in Camperdown when he learned she had sold his stepbrother’s car.
Upset about this, Fausett turned his frustration on her neighbour.
Twenty minutes after he threw the bottle at the woman, she returned home to find him attempting to gain access into a nearby home.
Fausett approached when he spotted her, causing her to flee inside her own home in fear.
For the next 20 minutes, Fausett threw a garden ornament through the front windscreen of a car parked in the neighbour’s driveway.
He also threw an ornament through his mother’s kitchen window.
Police attended but found Fausett had fallen asleep in a driveway.
An officer woke him and, while he was cooperative at first, Fausett became verbally aggressive with one of the officers.
Fausett attempted to grab a metal object but was stopped.
When this failed, he kicked out at one of the officers.
Magistrate Simon Guthrie said the damage Fausett caused would have led to “the fear you put into those people”.
He said prison was “nothing new” to Fausett, who has an extensive criminal history, and said it was an option open to the court again.
Mr Guthrie instead placed Fausett on a community corrections order, telling him there was “clearly a good benefit for community purposes for your rehabilitation … for some serious is
sues, but not to mention health issues as a consequence of your behaviour”.