Anthony Rossi: Epping carpenter repeatedly drives on ice

An Epping father was on drugs and banned from driving when he slammed into a parked car. And he’d already been caught multiple times before.

Anthony Rossi fled from the scene after he crashed into a parked car.

An Epping father who’s repeatedly been caught driving on drugs and a disqualified licence, including when he crashed into a parked car, has narrowly avoided jail.

Anthony Rossi, 43, was sentenced to a 12-month corrections order with 100 hours community work at Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court on Monday, November 23.

The carpenter pleaded guilty to charges including drug driving and driving while disqualified on five separate occasions, with three of them being in the space of a month.

Rossi’s licence was cancelled at court before he was caught driving at 56km/h in a 40km/h zone while on ice in Reservoir about 6.26pm on July 29, 2019.

He was also driving a car without his mandated alcohol interlock.

The father-of-two was then caught driving on a disqualified licence three times in September 2019.

Rossi was also high on ice on September 27, 2019 when he slammed his car into a parked car in Reservoir about 2.15am, shunting it 4m forward and up onto a footpath.

He immediately drove away, leaving the other car significantly damaged.

Rossi was again caught driving on ice and a disqualified licence in Brunswick on January 30.

The court heard he had a history of unrelated crimes.

Lawyer Sally Vardy said her client fell into using drugs after his relationship broke down and he had a workplace accident in 2016, but that his life looked very different in recent months.

The court heard he was working full time, caring for his partner, and was a keen soccer player with Thornton United FC.

Ms Vardy pushed for him to be given a corrections order instead of a jail sentence.

Magistrate Michael McNamara said he had planned to send Rossi to jail for committing the offences soon after he had just been before a court for the same thing.

“Mr Rossi needs to understand that he ought to be going to jail,” he said.

“He’s just not getting the message.”

“Nothing seems to have got through to him.”

But Mr McNamara agreed to give him the community-based punishment, also fining him $400 and disqualifying his licence for a further 12 months.