A man was convicted in Orange Local Court on Monday for pushing over a grandfather in front of his young grandson as the duo tried to watch Orange City Council workers remove a fallen tree.
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According to police, a large tree fell out the front of a house in Algona Street where Paull Stanley, 64, lived, and the grandfather had brought his grandson to watch the removal of the tree on June 20.
At 4.10pm several Orange City Council workers were at the site to remove the tree and tidy up the scene.
The victim's grandson was fascinated by trucks and machinery and wanted to have a closer look so the they walked to the site.
While they were watching the workers the man came out and accused the child of touching items on his front verandah. He started screaming at them to go away.
Stanley's son them jumped off the front verandah and approached the grandfather and grandson telling them to leave.
Stanley also walked down the front steps and approached the victim who was standing near the gutter.
Stanley then shouldered the grandfather in the chest causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards onto the ground causing immediate pain.
Witnesses came to the victim's assistance, Stanley and his son went back into the house and the grandfather and grandson returned home.
Stanley was unrepresented when he came before magistrate David Day for sentencing last week.
Stanley said he has lived on and off in Orange for about 20 years and Mr Day noted that he had previous convictions and court appearances on his criminal record from Western Sydney and Toronto at Lake Macquarie.
The previous offences included assault and intimidation in 2014.
"It's certainly a lengthy record," Mr Day said and noted another assault from Coffs Harbour in 1999.
"The offending is aggravated by occurring in the presence of a child, it is aggravated by Mr Stanley's lengthy record."
Mr Day also noted that Stanley is a pensioner and his healthy is not good.
"But he has such a bad record and more recently for assault he cannot avoid conviction." Mr Day convicted Stanley and fined him $550 for the common assault.
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