Named and shamed: Crimes that rocked the South Burnett in May, June

From a man who viciously attacked a blind woman to a cruel case of revenge porn, the South Burnett has borne witness to a number of shocking crimes in recent weeks.

From a man who viciously attacked a blind woman to a cruel case of revenge porn, the South Burnett has borne witness to a number of shocking crimes in recent weeks.

Here are some of the South Burnett’s notable crime stories over the past month:

Shane Robert O’Hara

A blind woman was thrown onto a concrete footpath by a 35-year-old man so violently her head “bounced”, before being punched more than a dozen times and kicked.

Shane O’Hara later told police he didn’t know she was a woman and he believed she was threatening to rob him at knifepoint, despite CCTV showing him turning his back on her before launching his assault.

Shane Robert O’Hara leaving Kingaroy Magistrates Court. Photo/Dominic Elsome

The 50-year-old woman, who has just six per cent vision in one eye and one per cent in the other, had been collecting used cigarette butts with a friend in Blackbutt at the time of the attack.

Police prosecutor Lisa Manns told Kingaroy Magistrates Court that O’Hara grabbed the victim by the throat and threw her to the ground, causing her head to “bounce off the concrete”, before climbing on top of his victim and punching her in the face 13 times.

O’Hara pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm and was sentenced to three months’ jail, wholly suspended for 12 months.

Joshua Skvaridlo

A Ballogie man convicted of raping a sleeping teenager and groping a 12-year-old was jailed after breaching his suspended sentence for a third time.

Joshua Mark Skvaridlo was sentenced to five years’ jail in 2018 for raping a 17-year-old girl, with the jail term suspended after he had served 20 months behind bars.

Kingaroy District Court was told the now-36-year-old had been brought before the courts only years earlier in 2014 after he molested a 12-year-old, and was sentenced to a wholly suspended 12-month jail term and placed on probation for 18 months.

Joshua Mark Skvaridlo

Time behind bars did little to deter the repeat child sex offender from continuing to flout the law, with Skvaridlo failing to meet his obligations as a reportable offender three times between April 2021 and January 2022.

Skvaridlo was sentenced to three months of his original suspended jail sentence with immediate eligibility for parole, but warned a significant backlog in parole applications meant he could spend the whole period behind bars.

He pleaded guilty to one count of breaching a suspended sentence.

Damien McLean

A man who posted intimate images of his ex-girlfriend on social media after they broke up was outed when his own daughter dobbed him in to the victim.

The woman received a message from Damien McLean’s daughter in December 2020, which said there were photos of her in g-strings on the 49-year-old’s facebook.

The eight images showed the victim wearing underwear and bikinis, and included close up shots of her genitalia covered by the underwear.

Police prosecutor Lisa Manns told the court the message told the victim to look at his YouTube channels where she found several intimate videos of herself lifting her dress to expose her underwear to the camera.

McLean pleaded guilty to one count of distributing intimate images and was sentenced to six months’ probation.

Daniel John Bell

A man who fractured another man’s skull with a hammer in a terrifying armed robbery was sentenced in the Kingaroy court, more than five years after the violence took place.

The victim and his wife were getting ready to go to a barbecue on January 7, 2017, when they noticed Daniel John Bell, 28, and an unnamed co-offender in their backyard, armed with a hammer and screwdriver respectively.

Kingaroy District Court was told the 28-year-old’s co-offender rummaged through the couple’s home while Bell, armed with the hammer, demanded the man tell them “where the money was”.

“When the victim told him there was none in the house, (Bell) struck him in the head with the hammer a couple of times,” Ms O’Rourke said.

The court heard the victim was left with blood pouring from his fractured skull and began pleading with the men to take his wife’s medication and leave, then tried to grab the hammer from Bell.

Bell then headbutted the man before he and his co-offender fled the scene.

He pleaded guilty to one count each of burglary with violence while armed and armed robbery in company with personal violence, and was sentenced to four years’ jail, wholly suspended for five years.

Elva Hoya Landers

Police desperately scrambled to regain control when as many as 20 people, mostly teens and children, began brawling in broad daylight in a public street on the orders of a grown woman.

Thirteen-year-old children in school uniforms began throwing wild punches and a busload of younger children screamed and ran for safety into nearby buildings, while a mother of four can be heard instructing the teens to “rush them”.

Elva Hoya Landers, 41, was the inciter of the disturbing chaos and later spat in the face of a policeman while being arrested.

Police prosecutor Barry Stevens said Landers was “inciting children to fight”, repeatedly telling the teens to “rush them”.

Landers pleaded guilty to serious obstruct police, assaulting police and affray.

She was sentenced to four months’ jail, wholly suspended for 12 months.