A MAN narrowly escaped a full-time jail sentence in Orange Local Court on Thursday after he punched a teenager in the face, in front of the boy’s mother and his own son.
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The teenage boy and another child had a verbal argument out the front of Ross Dickson King’s home in Kurim Avenue on February 24.
King heard the fracas and came out of his home and asked the boy if there was a problem.
The boy knew King and asked him to stop calling his girlfriend names.
All three began arguing when the boy’s mother arrived on the scene .
She arrived in time to hear King threaten her son.
“I’m going to kick your head in,” he told the boy, police facts said.
He then walked out of his front yard and punched the boy in the face, giving him a bleeding nose.
But the threats did not stop.
“The rebels are my friends and they’re gunna come and smash your heads in,” King said.
Despite a lengthy criminal history, King’s solicitor Mick Madden successfully argued his client should not go to jail full time.
Instead the magistrate, Terry Lucas, handed down a suspended jail sentence of two years.
If King commits a crime in that time, he will serve the two-year sentence in custody.
His criminal history includes assault with the intention to rob; larceny; break, enter and steal; hindering police; breaching an apprehended violence order and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
King initially pleaded not guilty, but was convicted after a hearing.
