Taylor Maree Carlo pleads guilty in Chinchilla Magistrates Court to school drop-off assault

A Chinchilla woman who assaulted a fellow mum at a school playground during drop-off has faced court. Here’s the long list of charges she faced.

Things turned ugly during a run-of-the-mill school morning drop off after a heated argument between two mums ended in a physical altercation.

Chinchilla woman Taylor Maree Carlo pleaded guilty in Chinchilla Magistrates Court to unlawful assault causing bodily harm, drug driving, drink driving, not displaying learner plates and driving disqualified, unlicensed and unsupervised.

The 25-year-old, who has a “poor traffic” history and a previous assault charge, accumulated the eight charges over a six month period between October 2022 to January 2023.

The court was told all the facts in relation to the charges, including how the learner driver drug drove after consuming cannabis, drove while over the middle alcohol limit with a 0.103 blood alcohol concentration, didn’t display L plates correctly, drove without a supervisor and repeatedly drove without a relevant open licence and on a demerit point suspended licence.

However, police prosecutor Chris Hutchins said the assault was by far the most serious offence on the list, calling it a “cowardly attack”.

Sergeant Hutchins said the victim claimed the defendant looked angry as she walked away after they had a brief conversation, where she was then punched leaving her feeling “dizzy and frightened”.

“She’s effectively assaulted another parent at the school in school hours. She needs to know acts of violence, especially on school grounds, need to be taken seriously by the court,” Sergeant Hutchins said.

Taylor Maree Carlo pleads guilty in Chinchilla Magistrates Court to eight charges relating to assault, drink and drug driving and learner driver licence breaches. Picture: Facebook.

“She can’t afford to have any more further acts of violence where she causes actual injury and expect the courts to continue dealing with her lightly.

“It’s an argument that’s escalated, she (the victim) turned away. She’s technically done what’s called a coward’s punch or slap.”

However, defence lawyer Joe Millican said the assault was at the lower end of the scale.

“She was in a domestically violent relationship at the time and it was stressful for her and had an impact,” he said.

Mr Millican said other than another prior assault occasioning bodily harm dating back to 2016, the mother-of-two’s behaviour was “out of character”.

Magistrate Kyna Morice said Carlo needs to get her behaviour in check, especially considering she broke her last probation order.

“This bizarre mix of offences, what it says to the court is that ‘you do what you want, when you want’ irrespective of what the court tells you, what the law tells you,” the magistrate said.

“She has eleven like offences relating to unlicensed driving on a learners drivers licence.

“She needs some assistance and education and support for making better decisions, otherwise she’s going to find herself keep coming back here.”

Ms Morice sentenced Carlo a two year probation order for the unlawful assault, as well as the drink and drug driving charges, and was disqualified from driving for 15 months.

Convictions were recorded.