Jail For Bashing Dancer

Newcastle Herald

Thursday March 8, 2007

GR

THE teenager who instigated the bashing of visiting ballet dancer Adam Blanch will spend two months in jail after a judge said there needed to be a deterrent against vicious street assaults in the city's central business district.

Dylan John McCook, 19, a security guard of Meredith Street, Kotara, was led away by Department of Corrective Service officials after his appeal to the Newcastle District Court against the severity of a four-month sentence given to him last year by a local court magistrate was dismissed.

Although decreasing the sentence to two months' imprisonment, Judge Ralph Coolahan dismissed McCook's plea for liberty.

McCook publicly apologised for his actions while giving evidence in the witness box.

In describing McCook's actions on June 3 last year as an act of "gratuitous cruelty", Judge Coolahan said he had little option but to send him to jail.

"This was a very serious, unprovoked assault in Hunter Street, Newcastle, something that has become more than a rare occurrence," Judge Coolahan said.

". . . there has to be a deterrence to the general community".

The court heard that an "extremely intoxicated" McCook attacked Mr Blanch shortly after the former Weston boy had walked his mother to her car.

Mr Blanch, 23, who was in town to star in the Queensland Ballet Company's show at Civic Theatre, suffered cuts, bruising, headaches and dizziness and could not perform later that day.

McCook and a co-offender, Owen James Screen, 19, were later spoken to by police at the nearby Ducks Nuts Hotel where they had gone to continue drinking after the assault.

The court heard Screen had assisted police with the investigation and was given a good behaviour bond.

A psychological report tendered to court told of McCook's "dysfunctional childhood" and he told the court he had abstained from alcohol for more than 100 days.

McCook said he now realised he became aggressive while drinking alcohol and although he could not remember the bashing, it had became a catalyst for him to seek help and that he knew "there were two ways to go".

"I think if I went to prison I would go down the wrong track; I think now is the time for redemption," he told the court.

"This was a very serious, unprovoked assault in Hunter Street, Newcastle, something that has become more than a rare occurrence . . . there has to be a deterrence to the general community". Judge Ralph Coolahan

© 2007 Newcastle Herald

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