Andrew Dillon Smith: Mowbray man guilty of servo temper tanty, projectile assault

A Tasmanian man has been sentenced for trashing a service station after his card declined and launching a missile at the head of a neighbour he was warring with. What he was sentenced to.

Mowbray man Andrew Dillon Smith, 25. Picture: Facebook

A Tasmanian man has been sentenced for trashing a service station after his card declined and launching a missile at the head of a neighbour he was warring with.

Mowbray man Andrew Dillon Smith, 25, a father of five children who grew up in Devonport, pleaded guilty in Launceston Magistrates Court on Friday to charges of disorderly conduct and common assault.

On January 31 last year, Smith’s brother became involved in a verbal altercation with his neighbour regarding the shooting of a slingshot into their shared fence, the court was told.

Smith, who was present, threw a projectile at the man, who was struck in the head.

The court heard an ambulance was dispatched, treating the man for a “superficial head wound”.

Smith was subsequently located at his residence and conveyed to Launceston Police Station, where he claimed that he had not assaulted the neighbour, but that his injuries were caused by him falling and hitting his head on the fence.

In an unrelated episode on July 23 this year at BP Newnham, police were called to a disturbance at approximately midnight.

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Upon arrival, they spoke with Smith who was “behaving in a very erratic manner, yelling loudly about punching someone in the throat,” the court was told.

Multiple bins had been upturned throughout the station and Smith “continued to behave in an aggressive manner”.

When he ignored police requests for him to “calm down,” and became aggressive towards the officers, he was placed under arrest, where he told officers he lost his cool because his card declined and he couldn’t pay for fuel.

Smith said that he argued with the cashier and confessed to elbowing the glass sliding door on the way out.

It was submitted in court on Smith’s behalf that he left home at 18 due to his “alcoholic and violent father,” and began “using drugs and abusing alcohol”.

However, it had been a “long time since he had used”.

The court heard Smith’s only source of income was a carer’s pension he received from looking after his partner, but that he had previously performed automotive work.

Magistrate Evan Hughes said the use of slingshots in residential areas would always cause friction between neighbours and that the projectile he threw could have easily struck his victim in the eye, which would have meant a far more serious charge than common assault.

He convicted Smith, fined him $800 and ordered he pay costs and levies of $169.52.