By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
An Endeavour Hills man brought trouble on himself and his father after posing with an unregistered gun in a sinister MMS message to his ex-partner.
The 0.22-calibre rimfire rifle had been found at a landfill by his father 20 years ago, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court was told on 20 June.
It had since been kept as an inoperable keepsake – largely forgotten about, never used and stored without ammunition in the father’s Mulgrave garage.
That was until the man, who was in a property dispute with his former partner, found the gun while looking for a rag in the cupboard.
Holding the gun, he sent the following MMS to the victim on 7 May: “Patience there’s a man with a gun LOL. I’ll pay you when you’re truly humble.”
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen asked the man “what were you thinking to achieve by this?”
“It can only be taken one way. It’s not a joke.”
The man replied he never meant the message as a genuine threat. He had absent-mindedly thought of it as comical, he told the court.
“Without thinking, I thought it would be an interesting image and sent it to other people.”
The ‘truly humble’ term referred to his ex-partner’s “condescension” to him, he said.
The man’s father was as a result charged with possessing an unregistered weapon.
He told the court he wasn’t aware his son even knew about the gun at the time.
After being told about the incident, the father said he wanted to hand the gun into police.
“I’m terribly sorry and embarrassed,” the father told the court.
“I’m feeling like a d***, quite honestly.”
Mr Vandersteen noted the pair’s lack of prior convictions, and fined the father $750.
He ordered for the gun to be forfeited for destruction.
The son had youth on his side, displayed remorse, had no history of family violence and had not breached the intervention order that was installed to protect the ex-partner after the incident, Mr Vandersteen said.
The son had tried to exert control over the dispute by using a threat of violence, the magistrate said.
“There is no other reason you would have a firearm and make the comments that you did.”
The son was put on a 12-month good-behaviour bond and ordered to donate $1000 to the court’s charitable fund.
