A KIRKSTALL offender with a long habit of breaching intervention orders during a violent 14-year relationship has had six months lopped off his jail sentence on appeal.
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Kevin Knowles, also known as Kevin Doherty, 42, of Atkinson Street, pleaded guilty in Warrnambool Magistrates Court in early December last year to 16 offences mostly involving breaches of intervention orders.
Two previously suspended jail sentences, amounting to eight months, were activated and another six months added.
Knowles had served 116 days in custody and was sentenced to spend another 10 months in prison.
Knowles’ lack of regard for court orders was demonstrated when he was previously released on bail and banned from using a mobile phone — only to contact Koroit police on his mobile phone a number of times.
This week Knowles appealed against the severity of his 14-month sentence in the Warrnambool County Court before judge Wendy Wilmoth.
Judge Wilmoth reduced Knowles’ sentence to eight months, followed by a two-year community corrections order.
Knowles has served almost seven months in jail and will have to serve just over another month before being released and starting his CCO.
Police previously said that an intervention order was put in place during May last year banning Knowles and his partner from being together, but when he was released from Port Phillip Prison on January 30 this year she picked him up.
In early February last year he went to her home to get a bag and in early March they travelled to Devonport together on holidays before they argued and police were called.
On April 1 they were both at Knowles’ home.
They were drinking and he chased the woman, told her to get off his property and she fled to a neighbour’s home.
Police were called, they attended and a drunk Knowles told them to “f... off” and come back the next day. Officers used capsicum spray on Knowles, which had little effect.
He was released on bail on April 3 but failed to comply with a curfew and not using a mobile phone.
A solicitor said that Knowles had been involved in an entrenched domestic violence lifestyle for most of his adult life.
Knowles told the court he hadn’t consumed alcohol since April. He said he would not give evidence against the woman who has been charged with offences after an incident on August 9 when his glass eye was smashed and his cheekbone fractured.
She claims to have acted in self-defence when she hit Knowles with a table while he was allegedly strangling her.
