Heath Lyon: Ascot Vale tenant attacks ex-landlord in his house

An enraged man broke into his ex-landlord’s Ascot Vale home before dawn and told him he wasn’t “surviving the night” before handing out a savage beating with kitchen appliances during a prolonged attack.

Lyon held knives to his victim’s face.

A man broke into his ex-landlord’s home and savagely bashed the older man with kitchen appliances and threatened to kill him, a court has heard.

Heath Lyon poked knives into his former lessor’s face and left him needing sutures in his head and surgery to repair a severed nerve in his broken thumb after the vicious attack.

Lyon, 36, fronted the County Court this month, having pleaded guilty to charges including burglary, making a threat to kill, intentionally causing injury and contravening a personal safety intervention order.

The court heard Lyon had rented a room at the victim’s Ascot Vale house on and off for five years before Lyon’s escalating threats and violence towards the victim led to an intervention order being granted in June 2019.

The order banned Lyon from going within 200m of the Ascot Vale Rd home and within 5m of his former landlord.

But Lyon, who was 34 at the time, broke into the house through an unlocked window about 5.30am on July 4, 2019, confronting the 68-year-old man near the living room.

Lyon told the man, “you’re not going to survive the night” before pushing him to the ground and kicking him in the head five times.

Lyon then ordered the victim to his feet, and with the man not understanding what had been said, Lyon dragged him to the kitchen.

He took two knives from the cutlery drawer and poked them in the victim’s face.

Lyon demanded the man stand up before he punched him in the face, body and groin, causing him to fall again.

Lyon then hit the man over the head with a kettle, threw a metal steam cooker at his head and pushed him against the wall before the victim managed to escape the house.

Lyon had three prior convictions for contravening personal safety intervention orders and had been jailed in 2014 after he pushed the same victim over a table in the living room.

Judge Rachelle Lewitan said the facts surrounding the incident were “very serious and disturbing”, noting the ordeal would have been terrifying for the vulnerable man being twice his attacker’s age.

The court heard Lyon had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2013 and hadn’t been taking his antipsychotic medication for 12 months before the attack.

He had told his doctor he believed his victim had been tampering with his food and belongings for years prior to the incident.

The court heard Lyon witnessed violence as a young child.

Judge Lewitan said she accepted Lyon’s moral culpability was reduced because of his schizophrenia, but said his rehabilitation prospects were guarded because of his alcohol and drug use.

She said he would get the benefit of having pleaded guilty early, and she was taking into account that custody was more onerous because of COVID-19.

Judge Lewitan sentenced him to four years’ and six months’ jail, with a non-parole period of two years and six months, noting he’d already done 405 days.

She said she would have ordered six years and 10 months with a non-parole period of four years but for the guilty plea.

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