A 23-year-old man was given a chance to rehabilitate from drug addiction when he received a second suspended jail sentence in the Launceston Magistrates Court.
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Luke Andrew Krushka received the additional wholly suspended sentence of three months on Tuesday after pleading guilty to common assault in November 2019.
He also pleaded guilty to driving offences committed on January 1, 2020, when as a disqualified driver he test drove an unregistered and uninsured motorbike on a public road in Ravenswood.
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It comes on top of a four-month suspended sentence Mr Krushka received on December 13, 2019, for two common assaults, unlawful possession of a dangerous article in a public place and use of a controlled drug.
In that case, the court heard that Mr Krushka used MDMA before assaulting a man at Riverbend Park with a baseball bat on October 30, 2019 - an attack which Magistrate Simon Brown described when sentencing as "very nasty indeed".
The same sentence also covered an assault on his father on September 13, 2019, when he left the scene despite being an unaccompanied learner.
Just five days after the Riverbend assault, on November 4, 2019, Mr Krushka assaulted a man by punching him to the head numerous times. While the assault preceded the imposition of the four month suspended sentence the resolution was not until this week.
In relation to an application by Tasmania Police for a breach of a suspended sentence, defence counsel Lucy Flanagan submitted to Magistrate Sharon Cure that it would be unjust to activate the four-month suspended sentence because the only breach was the driving matters.She said he had ridden about 50 metres on a public road when testing an unregistered trail bike.
She said that Mr Krushka had stopped using methylamphetamine which was causative of his offending.
Ms Cure said the latest assault to which Mr Krushka pleaded guilty was serious.
"I find it would be unjust to activate the suspended sentence for all the reasons outlined and it is important that he work towards his rehabilitation," she said.
However, Ms Cure imposed the additional three-month suspended sentence which was wholly suspended for twelve months. On the driving matters, Ms Cure disqualified Krushka from driving for four months and fined him $800.
On June 5, 2020, Mr Krushka pleaded not guilty to two counts of assaulting an off-duty police officer, one count of unlawfully possess a dangerous article (an axe) in a public place and two counts of common assault allegedly against the police officer's brother after an alleged altercation in York Street, Launceston.
He is due to reappear for hearing of the latest alleged assault matters on January 7, 2021.
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