Their mother turned up at a beach camping ground where they were staying and tried to snatch them from their caregiver, grabbing the woman by her hair and punching her multiple times in the head and face. Sore from the blows and with a small cut to her lip, the caregiver managed to get the children in her campervan and fled, but their mother chased them in her car.
When the caregiver stopped at a house, the children’s mother tried to continue her assault but a man intervened, holding her back long enough for the others to get away.
Police located the woman later that day while she was driving. She resisted arrest, tried to avoid being handcuffed and was verbally abusive. She threatened to punch a constable then followed through by striking her in the chest.
In the patrol car, the woman told the constable: “I’m going to get the Mongrel Mob after you and your family” and threatened other violent acts towards the officer.
She demanded handcuffs be taken off so she could punch the officer in the head.
She was on bail for that incident when she offended again in March 2022 against a different complainant.
Confronting the victim at her home, the woman was verbally abusive and threatening and struck out at the victim’s partner.
When police arrived, the woman continued her aggression, kicking out and resisting an officer who was trying to get her into a patrol car. She refused to hand over her property (a ring) as required under the arrest process and kicked an officer multiple times when he tried to take it.
In a statement for the court, the second victim said she and her family still felt intimidated and wanted the woman held to account.
She subsequently pleaded guilty to a range of charges arising from the incidents — assault within a family relationship, threatening to do grievous bodily harm, resisting police, two assaults on police, disorderly behaviour and breaching bail.
Judge Phillips said if he was to jail her, he would impose a term of about 10 months. Instead, he sentenced her to five months community detention, with an overnight curfew from 8pm to 4.30am, and 12 months intensive supervision.
Conditions forbid the woman from associating with or contacting the victims without prior written approval from the probation service and an order was made for her to undergo various counselling and programmes as directed by the service.
Neither imprisonment nor home detention would be in the public interest, the judge said, because it would interrupt progress the woman had since made to turn her life around, determined to get her children back.
She now had a job and had not used methamphetamine for three months, albeit the abstinence was self-reported.
He understood the woman had previously been using the drug any time she could get it and had difficulty controlling her emotions.
She wanted unsupervised contact with her children and believed their father was being treated more fairly in the Family Court process than her.
