Sex offender Stephen Michael Jones, 61, loses bid for victims of crime compensation
A man convicted of exposing himself on a park bench in Canberra was seriously bashed just months after being handed a good behaviour bond.
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A man convicted of masturbating on a park bench has had his bid for victims of crime compensation tossed out of court.
Stephen Michael Jones, 61, was in 2014 convicted of committing an act of indecency after he “removed (his) penis from the leg opening of (his) shorts and exposed it … and then commenced masturbating” while drinking a bottle of beer on a park bench first thing in the morning.
Jones, of Braddon, fronted the ACT magistrates court in September in a bid for victim’s compensation stemming from a baseball bat bashing he suffered, three months after being handed a good behaviour bond for the park bench incident.
Jones’s lawyer, Paul Edmonds, argued unsuccessfully that his client should be awarded compensation after being hit with a baseball bat 14 times during the fight.
Jones, who was drunk at the time, had his jaw was broken in seven places.
It has been held together with a titanium plate ever since.
Before the baseball bat attack, Jones showed up at his attacker’s house — a man referred to in court documents only as “Mr Price” — punched him in the face, stuck a hunting knife into the kitchen table and said “I am going to cut your throat”.
Government lawyers argued Jones should not be awarded victims compensation because he was committing an assault when he was attacked, but that argument was rejected because the duo had stopped fighting for at least five minutes when Mr Price went to fetch Jones a beer when, only to return with the baseball bat.
Special Magistrate Geoffrey McCarthy said Jones’s trouble eating food was not an “extremely serious” injury that would justify compensation.
Mr McCarthy also said Jones “is certainly not overly preoccupied with his appearance”.
He said a scar from broken jaw surgery on “a young person with an otherwise unblemished complexion” might justify compensation, but not on an old man with “a complexion consistent with his years”.
Mr McCarthy also said Jones might not have ended up being assaulted had he not been drunk at the time, and might “not have suffered any injury at all”.
A sober person, Mr McCarthy said, would likely have left the house without incident and had Jones been eligible for a pay out, it would have been halved because of his drunkenness.