SA court convicts alleged NCA bomber Domenic Perre of assault for spitting on police officer but imposes no extra prison time
NCA bombing suspect Domenic Perre will serve no extra jail time for the “cowardly, abhorrent” act of spitting on a police officer, a court has ruled.
Police & Courts
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Alleged NCA bomber Domenic Perre behaved in a “disgusting, cowardly, degrading and abhorrent” manner when he spat on a police officer but will serve no extra jail time, a court has ruled.
On Wednesday, the Adelaide Magistrates Court convicted Perre of aggravated assault but declined to impose any further penalty.
Magistrate Jack Fahey said Perre was currently in jail, and had at least two more years to serve, for other offending – and he considered that a “satisfactory” penalty.
“That does not mean I condone his actions … I find them abhorrent,” he said.
“Spitting on anyone, a police officer or otherwise, is a cowardly and disgusting act … I consider it to be a degrading act.”
Perre, 63, was found guilty of aggravated assault for spitting on a police officer who came to interview him at the Adelaide Remand Centre in November 2018.
He is awaiting a Supreme Court verdict, having pleaded not guilty to counts of murder and attempted murder over the March 1, 1994, National Crime Authority parcel bombing.
Perre is currently serving a 7 ½-year sentence for acting as a guiding hand in a drug racket operating in SA and WA.
Gilbert Aitken, for Perre, asked his client be sentenced to time already served for the assault.
He said had police arrested, rather than merely reported, Perre for the spitting, he would have already served any sentence the court could impose.
“He’s caught in this situation because police failed to act … to impose an additional sentence would, respectfully, not be justice,” he said.
Police prosecutors disagreed, saying time served for drug offending could not legally count against an assault conviction.
In sentencing, Mr Fahey said he agreed with and adopted Mr Aitken’s submissions.
He noted they were based on case law and precedent set not only by the Supreme Court, but also by the Court of Appeal.
“A sentencing court is not only permitted but obliged, as a matter of justice, to take pre-sentence detention into account,” he said.
He said that, if not for Perre’s existing sentence and time in prison, he would have jailed him for between four and five months.
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