Trent Bradley Roderick in court for wilful damage

A bad break-up has been blamed for a man’s drunken decision to use a baseball bat to smash the windows of a van parked outside a former partner’s home.

Hervey Bay court. Photo: Tracey Joynson

Bad blood between a man and his former partner led to an incident where he drunkenly smashed in the windows of a van belonging to an innocent person, a court has heard.

Trent Bradley Roderick, 42, pleaded guilty to one count of wilful damage when he faced Hervey Bay Magistrates Court on Thursday.

The court heard the charge related to an incident in which the windows of a white Ford Transit van were smashed in at Torbanlea on December 26, 2022.

A man was sleeping inside the vehicle at the time and was woken when a baseball bat was used to smash the windows.

Roderick left before police attended the scene.

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They saw the front windscreen was cracked and the driver’s side window had been smashed completely.

CCTV footage was used to identify Roderick.

But the story behind the incident was laid bare by Roderick’s defence lawyer.

The court heard Roderick, who worked as a carpenter, had been involved with the same woman for 16 years.

But during a breakdown in the relationship which had lasted about two years, Roderick had become involved with another woman, it was told.

The relationship with the other person was an “unhealthy one” and when it ended he had experienced difficulties with her, her family and her associates.

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On the night of the incident, Roderick had come home drunk after finding out his house had been broken into.

Assuming it had something to do with his former partner, he had walked around to her home, taking a baseball bat with him in a state of “emotional turmoil”.

The van was parked outside the home and the victim, who had nothing to do with the situation, was sleeping inside as his vehicle had broken down.

Roderick smashed the windows out of “pure frustration”, the court heard.

After an exchange between Roderick and the man inside the vehicle, a neighbour came out and spoke to the men and took the baseball bat, which was later given to the police.

Magistrate Trinity McGarvie said the explanation she had been given was that Roderick had armed himself and gone into the community trying to correct what he thought was a perceived wrong.

“You decided, completely inappropriately, to damage a member of the community’s property because you were in a bad mood and it seems also under the influence of alcohol when you made the choice to, in what I view to be a vigilante act, exact some revenge for your perceived grievance.”

Ms McGarvie said vigilante justice was condemned by the community.

Roderick was fined $500 and ordered to pay $700 in compensation.

A conviction was recorded.