Dylan Perri jailed for Bundoora drug deal knife attack
A teen has knifed his drug dealer outside a milk bar in Melbourne’s north less than a fortnight after fronting a magistrate for stabbing someone else, a court has heard.
East
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A teenager who stabbed his drug dealer outside a Bundoora milk bar less than two weeks after he being in court for stabbing someone else in another “drug deal gone wrong”, a court has heard.
Dylan Perri, 20, has been sentenced to 14 months’ jail and an “intensive” community correction order in the County Court after pleading guilty to intentionally causing injury and possessing cannabis.
The court heard he was 19 when he went with a friend to a carpark outside Balaka Place milk bar to buy cannabis from an 18-year-old dealer about 5pm on October 2, 2018.
The dealer got in Perri’s friend’s car and produced a box cutter, before both Perri and his friend pulled out knives, the court heard.
Perri’s friend and the dealer then ended up out of the car, punching and grappling with each other on the ground of the carpark.
Both were lying on the ground on their sides when Perri ran up and stabbed the dealer in the back.
The victim stood up and “a cascade of blood” poured towards his feet, before he ran to his friend’s house and Perri and his friend fled, the court heard.
Judge Patricia Riddell said Perri’s use of the knife was “completely out of proportion” with any threat posed by the victim, who was lying on the ground.
“It is completely unacceptable,” she said.
“The fact that the victim had produced a knife offers you no excuse.”
“You are very lucky that the injury caused to your victim was not more serious.”
Judge Riddell said it was particularly concerning that 13 days before the incident Perri had been before a magistrates’ court for several offences, including over an incident in January 2018 when he was trafficking drugs and inflicted serious injury with a knife.
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The court heard Perri had been using drugs since he was 14, including ice, which had contributed to him committing multiple criminal offences and repeatedly overdosing.
“Despite your young age, you now have a chronic and entrenched drug addiction,” Judge Riddell said.
The court heard when he was in Year 11 at Templestowe High School Perri was found with drugs at school and expelled.
When sentencing Perri on November 22, Judge Riddell noted he only had about 10 days of his 14-month jail sentence left, having already spent 416 days in custody.
She ordered he undertake a subsequent “intensive community correction order” where he either live at his parents’ Eltham home for three months, with a 10pm curfew, or at a live-in rehab facility.