Garry Raymond Mills rams car, threatens former friend in ‘self-centred’ feud

A court heard a man showed ‘no remorse’ for ramming a former friend’s car, driving as to threaten a head-on crash and screaming threats at 17-year-old boy.

A Qld court heard a man showed ‘no remorse’ for ramming a former friends car, driving as to threaten a head-on crash, and screaming threats at his 17yo son.

A Queensland driver was described as showing “no remorse” for repeatedly threatening a former friend, as well as other drivers.

Garry Raymond Mills pleaded guilty to three separate charges for dangerous driving where he crashed or threatened to crash into the car of the same man and a public nuisance charge for threatening the man’s 17-year-old son.

Magistrate Bronwyn Hartigan said the 67 year old did not seem sorry for his “extremely serious” offending, saying a letter to her from Mills made no apologies to the victim or his son.

“It’s entirely self centred,” Ms Hartigan said.

“The letter that you wrote shows no remorse … it shows no insight into the dangerousness of your conduct.

“Instead it simply speaks over and over again about your problems … you suffer from pain, every joint has degenerative arthritis, on and on it goes about you.

“I would have preferred to see something about them.”

The court heard Mills did suffer from physical ailments stemming from a serious motorcycle crash in 1995, but he had returned to work some time later which was where he met the victim.

Defence lawyer Adam Harvey said Mills and the victim had initially been friends, before a “longstanding, let’s say, feud” developed around 2016.

Mills told the court he had helped the victim before “he pushed me aside like a dirty rag”, claiming: “I got muscles, body parts missing because of that”.

Police prosecutor Sheena Gravino said the feud then continued for years until the first dangerous driving incident on April 9, 2021.

She said the victim was driving along the Bruce Highway with his teenage son when Mills’ Nissan 4WD deliberately crashed or bumped into the rear twice, before the two pulled over and confronted each other.

“(Mills) followed the truck at a very close distance for about 250m while twice deliberately crashing into that truck,” Ms Gravino said.

“(After pulling over, he) approached … and immediately began aggressively yelling and screaming at him about an alleged work injury.

“The informant said he was concerned about his child’s safety.”

Ms Gravino said Mills threatened to crash into the victim on May 21, 2021 while driving along Eversleigh Road in Sarina.

“(The victim) observed a blue ford sedan speeding towards his vehicle (at about 100km/h and) cross over the centre line and continue accelerating towards him,”

“The driver of the oncoming vehicle had his head against the window and appeared to be lining up the informant’s truck.”

The court heard the victim had to swerve as far off-road as possible to avoid a head-on collision, with Mills’ car coming “within a margin of 10 to 15 centimetres”of the victim’s.

A third dangerous driving incident occurred during heavy morning traffic on Sarina Beach Road at 8.25am on September 30, 2021, where Ms Gravino said Mills again sped at the victim’s car before swerving away.

Ms Gravino said the public nuisance charge arose when Mills drove past the victim’s house while the 17 year old from the first incident was outside, before pulling over to threaten him.

She said Mills “threatened to bash and kill (him, saying) ‘You little c——t, I’ll smash you, I’ll kill you’”.

While Mr Harvey asked for his client’s sentence to be suspended, Ms Hartigan said anything short of actual jail-time “would not meet the seriousness” of Mills’ actions.

“It can be inferred, absolutely, that this would have been terrifying (and) you have shown no remorse”, Ms Hartigan said.

Mills was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for the dangerous operation offences and convicted but not further punished for the public nuisance.

He is eligible for parole on July 20 and his convictions were recorded.