A LAUNCESTON man has received a four-month prison sentence, wholly suspended, and a $1500 fine for a serious assault on a defenceless victim.
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Jordan Charles Garcie, 20, was initially jailed for two months over the attack but that sentence was quashed on appeal in the Supreme Court this week.
The assault involved Garcie performing a roundhouse elbow on a 62-year-old man, who had taken a step towards him outside a licensed venue in July 2013.
Garcie's counsel submitted that he believed the man posed a threat.
The offender is also a trained cage fighter who was banned by fighting body Valour following the assault.
"The blow struck by the applicant imparted such force as to render the complainant immediately unconscious," Justice Robert Pearce said yesterday in the Supreme Court in Launceston.
"The [victim] was a much older and less agile man, affected by alcohol, posing no serious threat and who had no effective opportunity to defend himself."
However, Justice Pearce said the initial sentence should have been wholly suspended given Garcie's youth and lack of criminal record.
"Imposition of an actual prison sentence on a young offender is likely to expose him to the influence of confirmed criminals and increase, rather than decrease, the chance of reoffending," he said.
Garcie was warned that if he reoffended during the next two years he was liable to be imprisoned.