A TEENAGER has been jailed after pleading guilty to a string of offences, including making a pen pistol, cultivating 27 cannabis seedlings and punching a man through his car window.
Nineteen-year-old Zac Brereton wept in the front row of Ballarat Magistrates Court this morning after he was sentenced to five months in a youth justice centre.
Earlier police prosecutor Senior Constable Clint Prebble told the court that on the night of November 24 last year a 19-year-old man was driving in Sebastopol with his fiancé when the couple found Brereton and a group of youths waiting for him.
With the car window wound down, Brereton told the victim “I should hit you right now”, referring to an earlier incident.
Brereton then punched the man twice, once in the nose and once in the back of the head.
The victim then drove away from the scene.
According to documents obtained by
While police didn’t find the home made pen pistol they were searching for, they did find three small quantities of cannabis.
When interviewed by police Brereton further admitted planting 27 cannabis seedlings in his kitchen, and said he had been watering them for about a week.
Brereton then detailed information about the pen pistol, including how he made the device, which by law is classified as a handgun.
Defence lawyer David Tamanika urged the court not to impose too long a period of detention, saying his client was a “relatively youngish person”.
Magistrate Michelle Hodgson then sentence Brereton to five months in a youth justice centre.
“These are serious offences and they occur against a background of serious offences,” Ms Hodgson said.
“It’s in everyone’s interest that you don’t continue to offend.”
Brereton pleaded guilty to eight charges, including possess an unregistered general category firearm, cultivate a prohibited substance, possess and use cannabis, deal with property suspected proceeds of crime, shop theft less than $600, fail to answer bail and unlawful assault.
