By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A CRANBOURNE West man has been spared conviction after being found guilty of recklessly putting a man in danger of death after pushing him off a railway station platform and leaving him with a broken leg on the train tracks.
Kimiora Tangatapoto, 19, had contested the charges – including recklessly causing serious injury – at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on 13 December claiming he’d acted in self-defence.
Defence lawyer Aaron Eidelson argued that the accused had responded to the “unpredictable” heroin-affected victim at the Yarraman station platform in the early evening of 8 April.
The victim, who had been observed climbing a Myki machine and with a “bag full of syringes” that night, had allegedly started an argument and approached Tangatapoto with a syringe, Mr Eidelson claimed.
“We can’t know what this man was capable of.
“There was at least one uncapped syringe right next to him within reach – that is a life-threatening situation.
“And a person is entitled to defend themselves with a reasonable amount of force.”
Magistrate Peter White put weight on CCTV footage of the incident that showed the victim “moving away” from Tangatapoto before being punched several times to the head and then pushed, resulting in him falling on the tracks.
Tangatapoto then left the station with his associates.
The victim – who suffered a severely broken leg as a result of the fall – was hauled to safety by a witness 60 seconds before the 6.03pm express train arrived.
The alleged syringe threat was not captured by CCTV footage but Mr White found there was “a great degree of incitement or something that made you do what you did”.
The provocation didn’t justify Tangatapoto’s reaction, however, Mr White said.
Mr White said that it would also have been reasonably apparent to Tangatapoto that the station was frequented by trains “at a very fast rate” and a “very frequent interval”.
In sentencing, Mr White said he took into account Tangatapoto’s youth, no criminal priors and that he surrendered himself to police at the behest of his uncle – who had seen the incident on a TV news program.
Mr White also noted that the accused’s admitted he “f***ed up” and was somehow provoked.
He said he was “exercising a discretion I rarely do” by not recording a conviction against Tangatapoto.
Tangatapoto was sentenced to a 12-month community-corrections order including 170 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to provide a DNA sample to police.
