A MAN who threatened to inflict serious injury on the operators of an amusement ride at the Swan Hill Show in 2007 has been fined.
The County Court sitting at Mildura on Monday was told that Ryan John Mitchell claimed he was a member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and that he would “get” the couple.
Prosecutor David O’Doherty said Mitchell, 27, sent ride operators Travis and Michelle Taylor threatening text messages including that he would “come and get my husband and that we didn’t know who we were dealing with”.
Mr O’Doherty said the accused obtained employment from the Taylors in October 2007 and four days later he mentioned to Mr Taylor that he was worried that some people were out to get him and he may have to leave.
A week later the ride operators became aware that the accused had left his job unexpectedly and they did not see him again.
Mr O’Doherty said that the following day, Ms Taylor received a text message from Mitchell who gave her his bank details and stated they “had better put money into his account” within two days, but did not state how much.
He said the accused sent another message to Ms Taylor about 80 minutes later which stated that if the victims didn’t do what he wanted they “would be making the biggest mistake of our lives”.
The court was told that Mitchell kept ringing the victims but they weren’t game to answer the phone.
On the morning of October 18, 2007, Mitchell sent another text message to Ms Taylor which said that “things were about to start happening” and that the victims didn’t know who they were dealing with.
The accused claimed to have fire-bombed a car in Swan Hill a couple of weeks earlier and that he would fire-bomb Ms Taylor and her children.
She reported the threats to police and said she was scared about what Mitchell might do to her, her husband and her children.
Mr O’Doherty said the accused subsequently failed to appear on bail conditions.
Defence counsel Lior Maisner said his client was someone who was “otherwise not of bad character” and the threats related to an amount of wages Mitchell believed was owed to him by the Taylors.
Mr Maisner said Mitchell believed that he deserved some form of compensation but had tried to claim the money “in an inappropriate way”.
Judge Mark Dean said disputes “of this nature” could not be resolved by criminal offending and his sentence should serve to deter others.
However, Judge Dean said the accused was before the court “effectively” as a first offender and his prospects for rehabilitation were “good”.
Mitchell, who now lives in Bendigo, was fined $300 each on two counts of making a threat to inflict serious injury and $250 for failing to answer bail.
The judge said that if not for his guilty plea, the accused would have been fined a total of $1250.
