A WARRNAMBOOL offender already serving a minimum 12 months in jail has had another month tacked on to his sentence for harassing emergency service personnel.
Brett Toull, 23, of Fleetwood Court, pleaded guilty in Warrnambool Magistrates Court and appeared via a video link from the prison where he is serving his current term.
His sentence was imposed in November last year on multiple charges relating to seriously assaulting his partner and breaching a suspended jail term.
The new charges related to falsely reporting a fire, using a telecommunications device to harass emergency service workers, resisting police, offensive behaviour, being drunk and disrupting the good running of a police jail.
He was yesterday convicted, sentenced to an additional month in jail and fined $1500.
Police alleged that at 2.35pm on April 14 last year Toull and a co-offender were at the Woolworths supermarket in east Warrnambool where they behaved in an offensive manner and disturbed staff and members of the public.
They threatened to throw a bottle and tried to get members of the public to fight them.
The pair then went to Wanstead Street and at 5.15pm walked up and down Fleetwood Court yelling at people and disturbing the peace. A number of residents called 000 and when police arrived Toull and the co-defendant resisted attempts by officers to arrest them.
They were both subdued by capsicum spray.
Toull then disrupted the running of the police cells by continually banging on walls and throwing toilet paper at security cameras.
The following day Toull made 68 calls to the Warrnambool police station, harassed and verbally abused officers because he was angry about his treatment the night before.
At 11pm he rang 000 and reported there was a fire at a nearby church which the fire brigade and police attended.
There was no fire but Toull and the co-offender yelled obscenities at emergency workers and laughed at them.
Defence counsel Matt Senia said Toull’s parents had been drug addicts and his client had chronic problems with alcohol and drugs since he was 13 years old.
Mr Senia said at the time of the offending in April last year Toull and his partner were caring for their four young children and he went on benders to cope.
Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt said that Toull was clearly out of control at the time of the offending, the defendant and his co-offender were disgustingly drunk on April 14 and making absolute fools of themselves.
“Members of the public and staff were subjected to abuse and threatening behaviour which was totally unacceptable,” he said.
“The following morning you commenced a tirade of phone calls and again made a fool of yourself. It was an appalling barrage of threats and abuse.”