A festival enthusiast who attacked two paramedics in the wake of taking “a cornucopia” of drugs at this year’s Rainbow Serpent Festival has shun from an obligatory correctional punishment.
Twenty-two year old James Haberfield turned to be the first individual to be hit with required treatment and monitoring for wrongdoers who assault emergency laborers under the new Victorian laws. He eluded a minimum half year correctional facility term additionally required under the new laws, which became effective October 2018.
Victorian Ambulance Union Secretary General Danny Hill said the association was “staggeringly irate” with the outcome. Mr Hill called the newly passed obligatory sentencing regulations for the foray of emergency administration laborers “a flop” that wasn’t “conveying what it was planned to convey.”
“This instance of a male guilty party – who was drug influenced – placing a female paramedic in a wrestling hold and striking her in the face … on the off chance that that doesn’t arrive at the trial of what requires a compulsory sentence, I don’t have the foggiest idea what does,” he said.
“Paramedics will be left thinking about what is it going to take under the watchful eye of the courts will send a solid message.”
This year on January 29, James Haberfield came back to Melbourne after the multi-day music and arts events during which he expended “a concoction of drugs” including ice, MDMA, ecstasy & ketamine.
He thumped on the entryway of a Coburg home, strolled inside and startled the occupants, whom he didn’t know. A rescue vehicle came to gather Haberfield, this time staffed by two female paramedics.
While he was attended to in the back of the vehicle and in an “intensely crazy state”, he wound up forceful, striking paramedic Monica Woods in the face, folding his arms over her while pressing. Ms Woods shouted as Haberfield stuck her to the back corner of the emergency vehicle, with the two ladies hitting their duress knob before getting away and calling the police.
The driver of the emergency vehicle who happened to be a paramedic as well calmed him with midazolam before he was sent to Royal Melbourne Hospital, where he experienced treatment for over seven days.
Officer Simon Zebrowski said Haberfield’s impeded mental state that day was not exclusively because of self-incurred intoxication – as he had prior chemical imbalance range issue and a noteworthy depressive disorder. A mental expert said he would have a raised danger of suicide while in custody.
Mr Zebrowski said sending the “embarrassed, disheartened and profoundly embarrassed” young man to prison “would have an unbalanced and hazardous impact” on his future. Haberfield was then allowed an 18-month community remedies order and should experience the required treatment.
On August 28, ‘Monica’ talked outside the court upheld by an enormous gathering of supporters.
She said the attack has deeply affected her life. She hasn’t been able to come back to work and has since been determined to have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and nervousness. The paramedic endures through constant flashbacks of the strike.
Ms Wood stated the physical indications of the attack took over a month to mend and she still undergoes mandatory standard treatment for her neck and back pain. More than this, the mental effects will be the hardest to deal with, she said.
