Plumber Benjamin Foy avoids jail after assault of Ballarat apprentice

A Ballarat plumber pulled a first-year apprentice by his hair and helped lift him up in a makeshift noose at a job site during a sickening ordeal of bullying.

Ballarat plumber Benjamin Foy was sentenced for reckless conduct and assault on Monday.

A Ballarat plumber has avoided prison for assaulting a teenage apprentice on the job including putting his victim’s head in a noose, claiming it’s what “tradies do”.

Benjamin Foy, 31, was found guilty of reckless conduct endangering serious injury and assault after a contested hearing at Ballarat Magistrates’ Court in May this year.

On Monday, the court heard his victim was a 17-year-old first-year apprentice at Celsius Heating and Cooling, which Foy’s father owned and where Foy also worked.

On one occasion, Foy grabbed the back of the teenager’s head, pulling or grabbing his hair, and forcibly moved his head around in order to reprimand him for improperly done work.

“Do you like my new way of teaching?” he asked the apprentice.

“Well, get used to it.”

Foy faced Ballarat Magistrates’ Court for sentence after an earlier contested hearing.

In February 2023, the “noose incident” occurred, in which a co-accused made a noose out of tape at a worksite and Foy helped pick up the apprentice with his hands and legs tied so his neck held his body weight in the noose for two to three seconds.

The court heard this was done despite the victim saying he was scared and asking his colleagues to stop.

The victim’s mother later addressed the Ballarat court about how her son was “completely changed” by the traumatic ordeal.

Foy was not initially remorseful, saying he, his two co-accused, and the victim were “all just being f---heads”.

“It was just as tradies do,” he said.

He later expressed some regret.

Magistrate Michelle Mykytowycz said Foy created a “poisonous” workplace atmosphere with his fellow accused tradesmen and acted in a “predatory, cruel, and humiliating” way towards the apprentice.

He was convicted and sentenced to a community correction order for three-and-a-half years, involving 400 hours of community work.