By Steve Butcher
A 20-year-old who threatened to "put one in" a man he believed was in a relationship with his sister later shot the unarmed victim in the face with a .22 sawn-off rifle fitted with a silencer.
James Robert Reid was jailed on Thursday by a Melbourne judge who heard he shot the man, 43, at close range and how the bullet entered the left side of his nose but did not exit.
The County Court was told that the victim — who had dismissed an earlier warning from a woman that a friend of Reid's planned to shoot him — drove himself to Bacchus Marsh Hospital and was bleeding extensively when he arrived.
Crown prosecutor Kieran Gilligan said facial and cranial X-rays showed the bullet had lodged in the man's sinus and that it was ultimately decided to leave it in place, although two of three fragments were later removed.
Mr Gilligan earlier told judge Graeme Hicks, when Reid, now 21, and co-offender Colin Lee Parsons, 33, pleaded guilty to recklessly causing serious injury on January 25 this year, that Reid believed the victim was in a relationship with his sister.
Mr Gilligan said a man later told police that Reid stated "he would put one in" him because the victim had contacted his sister by phone.
Both offenders were earlier seen at a property in Rowsley where later the victim, who was primary carer for his unwell elderly father, saw Parsons — a close friend of the victim — with the weapon.
Mr Gilligan said Parsons followed the victim into a shed which Reid also entered holding the weapon, and then raised and pointed it directly at him from about 15 metres.
"The victim heard the trigger being pulled and heard a loud bang noise and immediately realised he had been shot in the face," he said.
Both offenders were arrested the next day.
In his sentencing remarks, judge Hicks, who noted the "tragic consequences" on the victim's life and work from the trauma he suffered, described the offence as serious and planned with the man shot at close range with "no ordinary weapon".
Judge Hicks said Reid, a labourer/concreter with no criminal history, was a young offender who had "mixed with the wrong crowd", according to his partner, and had used ice but was now a "very different person".
Parson's life, he said, was on a "downward spiral" after his father's death in 2012, he then lost his job and became addicted to ice, but the father of two — whose criminal history was limited — had made "commendable efforts at rehabilitation" while on bail.
Judge Hicks said he gave "considerable thought" to his sentence and noted that Mr Gilligan, a permanent and very experienced Crown prosecutor, had conceded it was within the court's discretion to impose a community corrections order (CCO) with a jail sentence.
Given that all agreed that Reid's sentence should be greater than Parson's, he was jailed for 20 months and to start an 18-month CCO on release with conditions that included treatment and rehabilitation for drugs and mental health issues and to reduce reoffending.
Parsons was jailed for 16 months and to begin an identical CCO on release.
Reid, of Melton, has already served 289 days on remand and Parsons, of Brookfield, 118 days.