A drug-addicted serial criminal carried out a "disgusting attack" on a Canberra bus when he spat on a passenger's hair, not longer after he had driven at another woman and knocked an elderly man unconscious.
But a judge has given Carl Christopher Lyons a chance to redeem himself in the community, suspending most of a two-year jail sentence in favour of a drug and alcohol treatment order.
In ACT Supreme Court sentencing remarks published on Monday, Acting Justice Richard Refshauge detailed a spree of crimes committed by Lyons on September 28 last year.
The judge said Lyons drove a car directly at the first victim in Braddon and crashed into a tree when the woman hid behind it.
In a second incident around the same time, an 80-year-old man was walking along a Braddon street with his wife, two young grandchildren and a dog when Lyons approached on foot.
Lyons yelled at the group "in a non-sensical manner" and, when they crossed the road to avoid him, he followed and punched the man in the side of the face.
The man fell and hit his head on the road, causing him to black out for a short time.
Lyons quickly fled the scene and later boarded a bus on the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge.
He sat down behind a woman and spat, leaving saliva on her hair and jacket, as well as the windowsill and the seat next to her.
Lyons then got off the bus in Woden and "presented himself to the police" at the interchange.
When he appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court the next day, he was described as "spitting, swearing [and] unable to give instructions" to a lawyer.
On his third appearance, however, Lyons pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and common assault.
In sentencing, Acting Justice Refshauge said Lyons was a 29-year-old man who had been dependent on drugs since the age of 13.
He said the offender recalled drinking "a few cans" and taking drugs before the relevant incidents.
"He says that the reaction he had to the drugs was unusual, even for him," Acting Justice Refshauge said.
"He has a suspicion that either the drugs or drinks were adulterated with some substance he does not usually take.
"This is supported to some extent by the fact that the bizarre behaviour continued when he first appeared in court."
Addressing the individual offences, the judge said Lyons' actions in driving at the first victim seemed "deliberate and even targeted".
"It clearly put the victim at risk and must have been terrifying for her," he said.
While Acting Justice Refshauge said the punching of the elderly man had not been premediated, "it was violent enough to knock the victim unconscious" and there would be some ongoing effects.
He said the spitting was a "disgusting attack" that would have been "degrading, humiliating and insulting for the victim".
"It was revolting behaviour, especially at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic when the virus appears to be transmissible by spitting," the judge said.
Acting Justice Refshauge said Lyons had been in and out of jail since 2010, but the 29-year-old's longstanding drug use was clearly a factor in his repeated offending.
The judge therefore suspended a two-year jail term from the date of sentencing in December last year, by which time Lyons had spent 78 days in custody on remand.
Noting that this was "not an easy matter to decide", he placed Lyons on a drug and alcohol treatment order until September 2022.
"I have given you a chance which a lot of people would not have given you," Acting Justice Refshauge told the offender.
"You make use of it and do what you can. Do not be overconfident.
"Put your heart and soul in it and you will get through it and you will then be in a position to get into the community [and] live a life that you want to live, not in and out of jail where other people determine what you do."
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