Dad cops jail, driving ban

A DAD mounted the pavement and drove his car at people on a busy Southport street because his passenger had a beef with one of the pedestrians, a court has been told.

Zachary Samuel Anthony Skerry missed the woman he was aiming for but ran over the foot of the man she was with while they were walking down Scarborough St about 6pm on May 24.

The incident took place just months after the former drug addict had threatened to smash his partner’s face in.

He was on probation and breached a suspended sentence at the time.

The 29-year-old pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court to multiple charges including dangerous operation of a vehicle, threatening violence and possession of dangerous drugs.

Magistrate Janice Crawford sentenced Skerry to a three-year head sentence and ordered he be disqualified from driving for 18 months. She ordered parole release on Australia Day next year.

He has already spent 124 days in pre-sentence custody.

“It is the most reprehensible conduct,” Magistrate Crawford said.

“You really can’t engage in that way.”

She described Skerry’s criminal history as “fairly concerning”.

Magistrate Crawford viewed footage of Skerry’s dangerous driving on Scarborough St.

“It is clear from that footage that you deliberately drove your vehicle up onto the pavement and narrowly avoided the female who had been arguing with your female passenger,” she said.

“I think she had actually been fighting with her.

“And the person who was with her, a male, you did collide with him in a way that struck his foot.”

Magistrate Crawford said it was not the most low-level example of dangerous operation of a vehicle.

“You certainly did hit him and he did fall on the ground,” she said.

“You were fully up on the pavement and that was extremely dangerous.

“The female pedestrian had to run off the pavement, toward the road and onto the road.

“That was a very dangerous thing to do.”

The incident came just a couple of months after Skerry on March 31 had made a number of phone calls with “highly abusive messages, using the most derogatory and insulting language” to his former partner.

The threats included slashing her face, threatening to bomb the house, smashing the car, threatening her mother and saying he knew where she lived.

The court was told Skerry had relapsed into drug use at that time.

Magistrate Crawford said she accepted Skerry had a disadvantaged and dysfunctional childhood but that did not excuse his behaviour.

Outside of court Skerry’s lawyer Basil Karsas, of Karsas Lawyers, said: “Mr Skerry is very remorseful for his conduct and the sentence reflects how serious the offences were.”