'Lust for violence' led to bar attack

A MAN whose “lust for violence” led him to brutally bash a stranger with a metal bar while he slept in his car has been jailed for 12 years.

This photograph tendered to Bundaberg District Court shows the shocking extent of injuries suffered by the victim after he was randomly attacked by Armin Rolf Hart. Hart was jailed for 12 years yesterday. Picture: Submitted

A MAN whose “lust for violence” led him to brutally bash a stranger with a metal bar while he slept in his car has been jailed for 12 years.

His victim was lucky to survive the savage, unprovoked attack in April 2010, which left him in a coma and saw him spend two months in hospital with fractures to his nose, jaw, eye sockets and cheekbones.

Armin Rolf Hart, 31, sat stone-faced in the docks of Bundaberg District Court yesterday as prosecutor David Nardone detailed the vicious crime.

“(The victim) had multiple plates and titanium mesh inserted into his face,” Mr Nardone said.

The man also required physiotherapy and spent time in a brain injury unit.

Mr Nardone tendered victim impact statements from the man's family, in which his mother spoke of the pain of having to watch her son have daily seizures due to his injuries.

The violent bashing was followed two weeks later by a three-and-a-half-hour rampage in which Hart bashed another man and held up three female backpackers at knifepoint.

Mr Nardone said Hart had a history of violence, once leaving a man unconscious in a pool of his own blood and chasing his own mother with a machete.

“Without flinching, (Hart) wielded weapons like knives,” Mr Nardone said.

“They were weapons used to satisfy a lust for violence.

“In the crown's submission, this is a man who doesn't deserve the court's compassion.”

Hart's night-long rampage on April 18 last year, which took him from Bargara to Woodgate Beach, started when he assaulted a German backpacker sitting in his car.

“The defendant smashed the window and punched him numerous times before he was able to drive away,” Mr Nardone said.

Hart then proceeded to knife a man at a pub, rip a door from a home and brandish a blade at the occupants and threaten to crack a man's skull with a spanner.

Defence barrister Harry Fong said his client came from a dysfunctional family and had suffered abuse from his father.

But the barrister conceded the offences could be described only as “completely irrational and undeserved for the victims”.

“Clearly he was looking for a fight,” he said.

Referring to photographs tendered to the court of the victim's injuries, Judge Walter Tutt said the attack seemed to be “one of the severest beatings a man could have and still survive”.

“You left this victim for dead,” he told Hart.

Hart pleaded guilty to a total of 14 charges, including assault causing bodily harm, armed robbery, wounding and deprivation of liberty.

Judge Tutt sentenced him to a total of 12 years in jail, declaring 416 days already served in custody.

“It is hard to imagine a more callous and cowardly attack,” the judge said.

Originally published as 'Lust for violence' led to bar attack