Phillip Shilldarien-Henley to spend time in prison after using fishing lines to recreate a spider web
His lawyer said he was just “fascinated by watching spiders”, but Phillip Shilldarien-Henley will spend at least two months behind bars for recreating spider webs with fishing lines – injuring a pregnant woman.
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A man who used fishing lines to recreate spider webs, injuring a pregnant woman when she walked into it, will spend at least two months in prison.
Phillip Shilldarien-Henley, 25, of Seaford frequently interrupted Magistrate Susan Elizabeth O’Connor as she handed down her sentence in the Christies Beach Magistrates Court on Friday.
The 25-year-old wrapped fishing lines in at least three different locations across footpaths in Christie Downs on July 28 last year.
In one location, on Paul Court, a woman who was 16 weeks’ pregnant walked into a fishing line.
Police prosecutor Brevet Sergeant Dianne Langton said the line wrapped around the woman’s neck and caused minor injuries.
Another woman also suffered a neck injury after walking into another line at a nature reserve.
“The act did cause injuries, and albeit it may not be deemed as serious injuries, at the end of the day, there could have been some serious injuries from the fishing lines,” Brev-Sgt Langton said.
Lawyer Ross Colthorpe said Shilldarien-Henley did not intend to harm anyone when he spent two hours stringing up the fishing wire in the dark while serving a good behaviour bond for a 2018 arson attack.
Instead, he argued his client “watched a spider spin its web and he thought it would be nice to be able to do that himself”.
“Police, when they went to his house, also found there were fishing lines across his balcony and across his veranda – clearly that is not something that would be set out to harm anyone,” Mr Colthorpe said.
“He was fascinated by watching spiders weave their web and he wanted to be able to do that as well.”
Shilldarien-Henley wrote a letter to the court expressing his regret over the women who were hurt by the lines.
Magistrate O’Connor said: “He did call it a spider web, but he also called it a man trap.”
“From a psychological perspective, a man trap creates a sense of power within the individual,” she said, citing a psychologist’s findings.
“It’s not shiny, it’s not pretty like spider webs, it’s just a mess of fishing line.”
Magistrate O’Connor sentenced Shilldarien-Henley to a maximum of five months and 19 days in prison.
He will be eligible for release on a good behaviour bond in two months.
The term also includes several breaches of bail and an arson charge for setting fire to a government car in August 2018.
Magistrate O’Connor said Shilldarien-Henley was noncooperative with staff during a pre-sentencing analysis, to which he interjected several times: “I didn’t know how to answer their questions.”