Timothy Lawford, 35, of Yambuk, pleaded guilty to hitting the youth with part of a jackhammer at the Port Fairy skate park. Lawford’s solicitor, Kathryn Moloney, said her client’s son, who has a disability, had come home crying because an older child had pushed him and called him names.

The incident was one of a number in which the boy had been bullied and there was growing tension in the area about anti-social behaviour, Ms Moloney said. 

Lawford had reported the bullying to police but the problem reached “boiling point” on February 13, she said, when Lawford, his partner and son went to the skate park to put “the wind up” the youth who was causing the problem.

When the youth had called Lawford a “spastic” it had tipped him over the edge and he had used an implement from a jackhammer to hit the youth to scare him, stiking him on the arm and causing a minor injury.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie said Mr Lawford had done to the bully what the bully had done to Mr Lawford’s son.

She said he had given his son and the bully the wrong example that it was OK to use force on someone with whom you disagreed.