Lukeisha Joyce Sawers pleads guilty to West Mackay car park assault

A young woman with ambitions to become a social worker has faced court for some seriously anti-social behaviour in a West Mackay car park.

A young Bowen woman has been ordered to undertake unpaid community service for her fierce reaction to a situation playing out in public car parks every day.

Lukeisha Joyce Sawers, 20, let rip on a female driver who reversed into her Suzuki Swift at a Bridge Road, West Mackay car park on July 18 last year, yelling at her: “You’ve hit my f---ing car c--t” and proceeding to physically assault her.

Bowen Magistrates Court heard Sawers, aged 18 at the time, screamed at the driver calling her a “sl-t” and a “c--t” as the woman searched her car for a pen to swap details.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Emma Myors told the court the woman eventually got out of the car to try and explain that the damage to Sawers’ car had been an accident, and things turned physical when Sawers started using a mobile phone to film the woman.

Lukeisha Joyce Sawers pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman at West Mackay in July 2020. Picture: Facebook

“The victim reached out and grabbed the phone from her hands as she didn’t want to be recorded”, Sgt Myors said.

“[Sawers] has then grabbed the victim’s head and proceeded to rip out a clump of the victim’s hair as she screamed for [Sawers] to stop.”

The court heard police originally charged Sawers with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, but later downgraded this to one charge of common assault.

The court heard Sawers yelled abuse at the woman as well as physically assaulting her. Picture: Facebook

Defence lawyer Amanda Zugno told the court Sawers was the one who had called police after the incident “escalated”.

Ms Zugno said her client had never been to court before and had maintained consistent employment since graduating from Bowen State High School.

She aspired to attend university to study social work and had been forced to delay these plans until her court case and any implications for her Blue Card application were “dealt with”, Ms Zugno said.

Acting Magistrate Rob Turra summed up the assault as “a case of [Sawers] being 18 and immature” and “really reacting poorly to a situation probably everyone in this courtroom understands”.

“This is probably the first time this has happened to you, you probably had saved up to buy that car, and you just lost control at that time,” Mr Turra said.

“Frustrations can occur.

“I get that, but it’s just completely unacceptable behaviour.”

He sentenced Sawers to complete 40 hours of community service within 12 months.

No convictions were recorded.