Beau Cassidy sentenced for common law assault, false imprisonment in Warrnambool County Court
A Horsham man who held a woman hostage in her own home has been sentenced to jail time. Read what the judge had to say.
A nightmare Tinder match led to a woman’s “terrifying ordeal” as a hostage in her own home..
The man, 28-year-old Beau Cassidy, will spend at least a year and eight months behind bars for his attack on the woman, which he carried out in 2019.
County Court Judge Amanda Chambers said Cassidy, a Horsham-based concreter, had been in the grips of a drug-induced psychosis during the attack.
“You locked the security doors, took her phone and threatened to kill or assault her,” she said in sentencing Cassidy on Monday.
The court had previously been told the concreter, then 25, was “fidgety” and “edgy” when he took a taxi to the woman’s house.
When he arrived he climbed onto her roof and started jumping on it before banging on the flyscreen door, demanding to be let inside.
When she did Cassidy spat on her face.
The court heard Cassidy became increasingly angry – flicking peanuts at the woman before throwing red cordial over her walls and then stabbing her in the neck with a fork.
The court was told Cassidy took her phone so the terrified woman couldn’t call for help and threatened to “belt her” and her cat if she did not help “get him off”.
Cassidy threatened to kill the victim if she did not comply with his orders, telling her he would “hurt her so bad that even make-up wouldn’t hide” her injuries.
The court had heard the woman felt she had no choice but to comply with his demands throughout the hours-long ordeal.
In her victim impact statement the woman said she felt angry with herself for having trusted Cassidy and suffered from ongoing flashbacks and nightmares.
She had “lost trust in males more generally” and isolated herself from family and friends.
Cassidy was convicted on Monday of common law assault, false imprisonment and procuring a sexual act by threat.
Judge Chambers said the woman was entitled to feel safe in her own home.
“Between the hours of 1.15am until you left in a taxi at 5.34am you terrorised the victim by multiple threats and assaults and degrading and humiliating conduct, culminating in you procuring the victim to engage in sexual acts by your threats,” she said.
“This was a terrifying ordeal for the victim.”
The Judge said Cassidy had come from a “loving, stable and supportive family” but his life unravelled after he developed an ice addiction at age 17.
He attempted 12 weeks of rehabilitation at Bendigo but relapsed.
“You were a talented footballer and basketballer,” she said.
“You were playing at state level for that sport (basketball),” she said.
He had a long work history, which once included working at a civil construction company as assistant fleet manager.
Judge Chambers said Cassidy’s behaviour could not be blamed on any mental health conditions, only the drugs.
“You were in a drug-induced psychotic state from your daily consumption of ice resulting in your paranoid, erratic and threatening behaviour towards the victim,” she said.
Judge Chambers sentenced him to a maximum prison term of two years and 10 months, with one year and eight months to be served as a non-parole period.
