AN enraged woman who broke into an occupied Warrnambool home on Saturday night to confront her boyfriend’s lover has been placed on a good behaviour bond.
Jasmine Anderson, 25, of Jamieson Street, Warrnambool, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court this week to trespass and causing criminal damage.
Police allege that on Saturday Anderson went around to a Queens Road flat at 12.30am to confront a woman who had allegedly slept with her boyfriend.
She knocked on the door repeatedly while another woman and her partner were asleep inside the unit, before kicking in the front door.
The couple in the unit awoke to find an enraged Anderson in their lounge room.
Anderson called out the name of a woman she was looking for but that person was not at the unit.
The woman who was in the unit fled to her bedroom and barricaded herself in, while Anderson smashed a plasma television as she left.
She was arrested the next day and made full admissions to police.
Defence counsel Amanda Chambers said Anderson believed a woman who lived at the unit had slept with her boyfriend and had gone there to confront her.
She said her client was emotional after discovering the actions of her boyfriend but she did not go to the unit with the intention of destroying property.
Ms Chambers said her client had been in a relationship with her boyfriend for seven years but the relationship was now “rocky”.
Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt said it was fortunate for Anderson that the consequences of her actions were no worse than the destruction of property.
He said it took little imagination to see how the situation could have got completely out of control.
The magistrate said he had no difficulty accepting that Anderson was angry and upset but she should have taken up the issue of infidelity with her partner and not an innocent victim.
Mr Klestadt said that in 30 years’ involvement with the law he had never seen an earlier plea to a crime that was committed just days ago.
He said the defendant had an excellent work record but a conviction should be recorded because Anderson had forced entry into an occupied property at night.
Anderson was convicted, placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond, ordered to pay $500 to the court fund and $700 compensation for smashing the television.