A trip to collect a set of bongo drums took a nasty turn when a former fruit picker held a knife to the neck of a woman outside her south Canberra home.
The frightening incident landed David Andrew McHenry in custody for more than eight months before he was able to secure bail.
He recently avoided going back behind bars, instead walking free from the ACT Supreme Court after being sentenced to a partially suspended jail term.
Justice John Burns' judgment, published this week, reveals that McHenry repeatedly texted and called his victim on December 18, 2018, insulting her and threatening to "gut her like a pig".
McHenry's drums were at the victim's place in Curtin, and he went there to collect them about 7pm that evening.
While on the front porch of the house, Justice Burns said, McHenry held a silver knife "firmly" to the victim's neck and repeated his threats to gut her like a pig.
McHenry eventually fled, and police found the weapon "secreted" in his pants when he was arrested not long after.
McHenry was subject to a good behaviour order at the time.
On the day his trial over the incident was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to charges of threatening to inflict grievous bodily harm and possessing a knife in public without a reasonable excuse.
Justice Burns described the offending as "serious".
"The threat was made to a female victim when she was on her own and therefore vulnerable," the judge told McHenry at his sentencing in late August.
"You had a knife with you at the time which you held in the vicinity of her neck whilst you threatened her.
"It also occurred at the victim's own home, a place where she should be entitled to feel safe."
In sentencing, Justice Burns said McHenry had a "not insubstantial" criminal record, and longstanding issues with drugs and alcohol.
The offender also had a number of mental health issues, but Justice Burns said he had not seen any evidence to link the relevant conditions to McHenry's behaviour on the date in question.
McHenry's lawyers conceded a jail sentence was warranted, and Justice Burns found the eight-and-a-half months McHenry had served behind bars on remand to be a sufficient period of full-time imprisonment.
The judge sentenced McHenry to 21 months in jail, with the remainder of the term suspended.
He also imposed two good behaviour orders, the longest of which expires in September next year.
