Anthony Ballantyne: Mornington plaster tradie dad in court over bloody DNA disaster
A father who smashed a window in a bungled bid to see the frightened mother of their five-week-old has been hit hard in the hip pocket.
South East
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A disgruntled dad who smashed his ex-partner’s laundry window made it extremely easy for cops to catch him by leaving his blood behind.
Anthony Ballantyne, 28, had separated from his partner, the mother of their newborn baby, when he turned up unannounced at her home in April.
He wandered into her backyard and tried to get inside the house by climbing through a laundry window.
The bumbling tradie, who used to run a plastering business, busted the glass, cutting his arm in the process and leaving spots of blood at the scene.
The Mornington man pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally causing damage at the Frankston Magistrates’ Court on Monday, June 7.
He was on bail at the time.
The court heard the woman was at her home at around 6pm on April 11 when she heard a loud bang from the rear of her property and went to see what was happening.
As she walked into her back yard she saw Ballantyne running away and phoned police.
The woman told officers said she would have to leave the house and stay with friends because she was fearful he would return.
When Ballantyne was later arrested he initially denied being the vandal, but the blood droplets he had left behind said otherwise, linking him directly to the crime.
Ballantyne’s defence lawyer said his client was on a downward drug spiral, and it had cost him dearly.
He said not only had Ballantyne split up with his child’s mother, he had also lost his plastering business as well.
The lawyer said Ballantyne had no criminal priors, and since the incident he had provided clean drug screens and done a men’s behavioural change program.
Magistrate Timothy Gattuso said although the damage caused was quite limited, the fact he did it while on bail was aggravating.
He said Ballantyne’s references, work history and volunteering past pointed to him otherwise being a “productive member of society”, but he simply couldn’t go around breaching orders and damaging property.
He was convicted and fined $1500.
