A man who yelled abuse at a jury while they were on a site visit for a trial has been sentenced to seven months in prison, suspended for two years.
Phillip Harris pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to influence a juror following the 2019 incident, which occurred during the trial of Bruce Boyer, who was accused of running over a man with his car.
Harris, who lived near the scene of the Ravenswood incident, was called as a witness but refused to cooperate with authorities.
During the jury view, Harris came out of his house and began shouting at the jurors, calling Boyer “guilty” and saying he “ran him over on purpose”.
“The f——g c–t is guilty as anything, he did it deliberately. I saw him do it, lock him away,” he yelled.
He also told the jurors to take him to the courthouse, saying: “My name is Phillip Harris. Look me up on Facebook. I am a witness.”
Defence counsel successfully applied to have the jury discharged due to the incident and the trial was delayed until September 2020.
Boyer eventually pleaded guilty to an alternate charge of causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving.
Judge Tamara Jago said the incident was “serious” and that “any free and democratic society depends in large measure upon the maintenance of a fair, just and uncorrupted judicial system”.
“The community and the courts will not tolerate interference with juries,” she said.
“Any such behaviour has the potential to threaten the integrity of the criminal justice system and may dissuade potential jurors from being prepared to sit as a juror.”
Judge Jago noted Harris’s prior convictions for driving offences, common assault, drug offences, bail offences, breaches of police family violence orders, dishonesty offences and destruction of property offences.
“You should clearly understand Mr Harris, it was a finely balanced determination and if you do not comply with the conditions of suspension, you will be required to serve the period of imprisonment unless it is unjust to do so,” Jago said.
