By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A drug-binging man with a violent history has pleaded guilty to bashing two intimate partners as well as a man in a Cranbourne pub.
Ashley Patric Murphy, 32, who has lived in Cranbourne, Pearcedale and Rosebud, faced 20 offences relating to drugs, violence and driving at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 8 July.
The court heard he squeezed and twisted a partner’s neck and threw her to ground during an argument in 2018. In another fit of rage, he took her phone and would not let her leave the house.
Murphy denied the assault at the time, but conceded the “significant” offence in court.
In March this year, a second partner suffered visible bruising to her head and legs during what Murphy told police was a “push and shove”.
She struck her head on a timber handrail and cut her leg on the ground.
He was intercepted in a car by police nearby. Police seized cannabis, Valium and a glass ice pipe from the car.
Murphy told police that he and the victim had a “push and shove”. She was injured after jumping from his car the day before, he claimed.
In admitting the assault in court, Murphy claimed the victim had first stabbed him in the wrist with the edge of a glass pipe.
In the lead-up, the pair had been “binging” on drugs, according to Murphy.
“He accepts his response was unnecessary, disproportionate and unacceptable,” defence lawyer Brett Barratt said.
In April 2018, an intoxicated Murphy punched a male stranger in the face and yelled abuse as he was escorted out of Settlement Hotel, Cranbourne by security officers.
Later, Murphy climbed a glass fence to the courtyard and spat twice at the same victim, hitting the man’s polo shirt.
He told a psychologist he’d started drinking in a pub in Pakenham, then a drinking hole in Berwick and didn’t recall the incident in Cranbourne.
Murphy also pleaded guilty to disqualified driving, refusing a drug-driving test, driving without an alcohol interlock and breaching bail conditions and intervention orders.
Mr Barratt said Murphy’s history of “similar” offences of driving, IVO breaches and violence were linked to an ongoing addiction to “a number of substances”.
Murphy’s aggressive behaviour and inability to manage his emotions related to severe mental health issues and an intellectual deficit.
He had a “desire” to reform himself, with the pub assault likened to a “watershed moment”.
Police submitted for a jail sentence due to Murphy’s serious, repetitive offending that put victims and the community at risk.
Magistrate Suzette Doojtes indicated a combination of jail followed by a CCO would benefit Murphy’s drug and mental health rehabilitation – and in turn, benefit the community.
But Murphy’s prospects for rehabilitation were not high, she said.
He had been given opportunities for CCO treatment in the past.
Murphy was remanded in custody for sentencing on 15 July, pending a CCO assessment.
