A single punch thrown in a "cowardly" five-on-one attack at Fairy Meadow Rail Station will cost a man five months of his freedom.
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Michael Court cast his partner a regretful glance as he went to the cells at Wollongong District Court on Monday, having had two months shaved off his seven-month prison sentence on appeal.
The court heard a teenage boy summoned Court to the train station the night of December 8 last year, claiming he needed help. In fact the boy had been admonished by an older man for littering.
CCTV footage showed the man pushed almost into the side of an arriving train as the first of the aggressors came at him. He was quickly swarmed as his pregnant partner looked on, with Court's co-accused, 20-year-old Dylan Pike, landing the worst of the blows.
The man was left with significant facial injuries and a perforated ear drum.
In a statement tendered to the court, he said he suffered ongoing pain, sadness and sleeplessness as a result of the attack. He was no longer the "happy-go-lucky fellow" he was before that night, he said.
"I thought we were going to die," he said.
"I am still afraid of going out as I think I may be attacked, hurt or even killed. This feeling is not going away. I am worried about it because I do not see a future for myself."
The court heart Court had himself been the victim of violence, requiring revival multiple times after he was stabbed in the heart in May 2018.
Judge Christopher O'Brien accepted Court's involvement in the rail attack was limited, but noted the charge required him to take into account the totality of the conduct involved.
"The people of the Illawarra are entitled to be on a railway station at eight o'clock at night without running the risk of being beaten up by young thugs. And if a lesson needs to be sent to the community to that effect, so be it," he said.
"This cowardly attack by the appellant and his co-accused has had a significant deleterious effect upon the victim ... such that he is seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist from time to time to deal with some of the issues that have arisen for him as a result of this behaviour.
"It is probably fortunate that this man didn't find himself under a train as he sought to hold off this group of assailants."
Judge O'Brien upheld the maximum 12-month prison sentence imposed by Magistrate Michael Love, but shaved two months off his seven-month non-parole period. His partner became tearful as he was taken to the cells, to become eligible for release on January 30, 2021.