Michael Muller faces court over glassing of Gavin Saunders at Cricketers Arms Hotel in Mooroopna

Michael Muller, 50, will likely spend years in jail after glassing Gavin Saunders at a Mooroopna pub.

A Shepparton grandpa had been “hanging shit” on his victim by yelling a racist slur across a crowded pub before hitting him with a beer schooner, leaving him with lifelong injuries, the County Court has heard.

Michael Muller, 50, faced court from the Fulham Correctional Centre, where he has been remanded since December, when a jury found him guilty of recklessly causing serious injury to his victim, Gavin Saunders.

Muller, a Tongan national, has also pleaded guilty to assaulting Mr Saunders by belting him with a chair as he lay on the ground afterwards.

At trial last year, a witness said Muller called Mr Saunders a “coon parasite” while “hanging shit” on him at the Cricketers Arms Hotel in Mooroopna in June 2019.

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Muller unsuccessfully argued he was defending himself from Mr Saunders, who turned their confrontation physical by pushing Muller off his bar stool.

Prosecutor Peter Triandos told the court on Tuesday it was clear Muller became the aggressor when he got up and Mr Saunders against the side of a pool table while brandishing a beer schooner.

He glassed Mr Saunders and struck him with a chair.

Judge David Sexton said, “at the end of the day, (Muller) did something dangerous, that has had catastrophic impacts on this man”.

Judge Sexton said hitting Mr Saunders with a stool was a “cowardly act”.

Defence lawyer Mark Sturges said his client, a father of seven and grandfather of 14, had little memory of the night and might be deported after his release from jail, either to Tonga or to New Zealand.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Saunders’ sister, Amanda Saunders, said Muller’s attack had turned their lives upside down.

She said her brother is now blind in one eye and needed constant care, including psychological treatment the family could not afford.

“What was meant to be a quiet drink at the pub … has changed someone’s life forever,” she said.

Judge Sexton will sentence Muller in April.