Alexander Howell jailed for terrifying DV offending and already eligible for parole

A man with a shocking history of domestic violence threats who fired a bullet through a woman’s couch to win her back has been jailed – but is already eligible for parole.

A man who fired a bullet through a former partner’s couch in a bid to scare her into getting back together has been sentenced - and is already eligible for parole.

Alexander Adam Howell, 31, was high on cocaine when he went to his former partner’s western suburbs home on December 13, 2019, brandishing a loaded 100-year-old gun he shot through her couch to prove it was real. At the time, a young child was asleep in a neighbouring room.

The gun had jammed and he fetched a fork from the kitchen to try and unjam it.

As his former partner screamed for help, Howell fled while brandishing the gun at bystanders who tried to tackle him to the ground. He then tossed the illegal weapon on a nearby shed. It was found 18 months later by a neighbour clearing foliage.

The 100 year old JP Sauer & Sohn self-loading pistol.

In sentencing in the Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Anne Bampton said Howell’s offending was “terrifying”.

“Your conduct at the victim’s home whilst high on cocaine wielding and discharging a loaded firearm whilst (a child) slept was conduct designed to intimidate and frighten and it carried the inherent risk of grievous bodily harm and fatal injury,” she said.

“Fortunately neither your former partner nor any of the residents on the street behind were injured.”

She said Howell’s offending had changed the life of his former partner who was left feeling “intimidated and violated”.

“It was an offence committed as an exercise of exerting dominance against a background of jealousy and disapproval you had expressed in text messages with the victim,” Justice Bampton said.

She said Howell’s continued manipulation of the firearm with the fork “carried a risk it might accidentally discharge” and “continued to place the victim in fear”.

Howell had claimed he retrieved the weapon from his former partner’s laundry that morning, but prosecutors rejected that claim because ammunition was found in the bum bag he left on a kitchen bench and in the car he had driven to the woman’s home.

The court has previously heard that Howell had three prior convictions for domestic violence incidents, including threats he would use a cheese grater to remove a different former partner’s tattoo. On another occasion he had also held that woman’s hand on a kitchen bench while threatening to hack off her fingers one by one.

For the December 2019 offending Howell, who has been in custody since his arrest, had pleaded guilty to offences of discharging a firearm and aggravated possessing a firearm without a licence on the eve of trial last year

He went to trial on a charge of attempted murder but was acquitted of that alleged offence.

The firearms offences breached a suspended sentence bond imposed on Howell in December 2017 for drug trafficking which Justice Bampton carried into effect. She imposed a sentence of two years and 10 months for the firearms offending to be served cumulatively on the trafficking sentence.

Justice Bampton set a total revised non-parole period of three years and two months, which she said meant Howell was now eligible for parole.