A COVID-infected, axe-wielding burglar fortunate not to have caused injuries to his victim only because the latter blocked the swinging attacks wrote he no longer wanted to "be negatively defined as a product of my environment" before he was sentenced to jail.
Last September, 36-year-old Jayke Steven John Fleury was intoxicated and alone in his Watson unit, on an upper level, where he was required to quarantine after testing positive to COVID.
He threw an object onto the courtyard below, prompting his neighbour to come out to ask him who was going to clean the mess.
The offender responded with "I have brothers" in a threatening manner.
Shortly after, Fleury armed himself with an axe then kicked open the neighbour's front door downstairs.
The neighbour used a baseball bat to block Fleury's swinging axe before breaking free of the struggle and fleeing the property.
Fleury, out of frustration, used the axe to destroy two televisions and a mobile phone inside that unit.
When police arrived, he was highly agitated and aggressive but surrendered after extensive negotiations.
Footage from a body-worn camera played during a previous court session had one officer telling the offender that they were "COVID coppers".
Fleury fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Friday for sentencing, which was halted midway briefly as he and his partner in the public gallery became involved in a verbal dispute, for the aforementioned offending and two other series of offences.
He had pleaded guilty to a raft of charges, including aggravated burglary, using an offensive weapon likely to cause grievous bodily harm, trafficking cannabis and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The court heard that five months prior to the axe-led burglary, Fleury was heavily intoxicated and abusive when he threw a cigarette lighter at a police officer, striking him in the eye and causing it to bleed.
Police had attended his residence after reports he was behaving erratically.
While he was living in a Gungahlin unit in July 2019, police executed a search warrant there and found 1.026kg of cannabis, which had a street value of between $5855 and $20,492 depending on how it was sold.
Officers also found $1820 in cash and a can of prohibited capsicum spray.
A forensic testing of the seized items revealed Fleury's left thumb print on one of the bags of drugs.
The offender claimed he had been growing cannabis for his personal use and in a letter to the court, expressed regret and disgust for his actions.
"I cannot go back and change the way I did things but I can look forward and change the way I do everything," he wrote.
"I want to no longer be negatively defined as a product of my environment but rather have my environment defined as a product of me, and for all the right reasons."
Associate Justice Verity McWilliam described the objective seriousness of the burglary as being elevated because it was at a residential premises in the early evening.
"The offending also appears to have been spontaneous and largely fuelled by intoxication," she said.
"While this apparent lack of premeditation is a mitigating factor, it does little to detract from the seriousness of breaking into a home with a dangerous weapon while the occupant is known to be present."
As for the failure to comply with self-isolation requirements due to COVID, associate Justice McWilliam said it was "not a trivial matter" because it exposed the victim to the virus.
She said although the drug offending was unsophisticated, Fleury "was nevertheless engaged in the business of drug trafficking for profit".
"Given the seriousness of the offences, and the importance to be placed on general deterrence in sentencing for drug trafficking, no sentence other than a term of imprisonment - for those offences attracting that penalty - is appropriate," she said.
For the drug, violence, burglary and weapon offences, Fleury was sentenced to three years and nine months' jail, backdated to last September when he was taken into custody.
With a non-parole period of 23 months, he will be eligible for release in August 2023.
For the COVID-related offence - failing to comply with a public health direction - he was fined $400 with no time to pay.
