An ex-reservist soldier who tied up and threatened to shoot a terrified worker as he tried to break out his pet cat from an animal shelter at Cranbourne West has been jailed.
Tony Douglas Wittman, 25, from Langwarrin, pleaded guilty at the County Court of Victoria to charges including aggravated burglary, common law assault, perjury and false imprisonment.
He told he police he had a “brain meltdown” and “switched into army mode” after being told over the phone he couldn’t pick up his missing cat from The Lost Dogs Home shelter until the next day.
On the night of 11 January 2021, he packed a black mask with a white skull print, an imitation flashbang, imitation firearms, cable ties, a tomahawk, a hunting knife, three ammunition magazines, a torch, wire cutters and a pet carrier.
Dressed in military style clothing, he cut a hole in the perimeter fence and entered the pound about 10.20pm.
Wittman approached and pointed his imitation gun at a worker as she drove in for her overnight on-call shift.
She described Wittman as wearing “full military style clothing” and bearing a “rifle” like a SWAT team member in a movie.
“If you do as I say and listen to me, I won’t shoot you,” Wittman told her.
She pleaded to him: “Please don’t shoot me, I have a two-year-old boy”.
Wittman marched her inside and asked her where the cats were. Scared he would harm the cats, she said she didn’t have keys for the area.
Wittman pointed the gun with his finger on the trigger. He threatened to shoot her several times if she didn’t comply.
He ordered her on her knees as he tied her hands behind her back with cable ties.
In what he later described as a “tactical withdrawal”, Wittman left via the hole he cut in the fence. He discarded his military clothing and weapons in bushland.
After five minutes, with her hands still tied, the worker managed to call her manager, her partner and triple-0.
“Help me, there’s a man with a gun, call the police,” she told her manager.
A security worker found her crying, shaking and struggling to stand.
She told police that she was “terrified this person will come back or try to find me”. He was “so aggressive and cold towards me I honestly thought he was going to shoot me and the animals”.
She was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms such as flashbacks and nightmares. She has been unable to return to the work she loved.
In sentencing on 25 February, judge Duncan Allen said the worker’s victim-impact statement described her “abject horror and fear” while being “tormented” and “tortured” by Wittman.
“You unequivocably changed her life.”
Police were called after Wittman returned to collect his cat the next day. He initially denied that he broke in the previous night, and perjured himself with a false written statement.
He later confessed when police found evidence that he was out until 11.23pm that night.
“I had a brain meltdown… I tac’d-up and I breached the perimeter of the Lost Dogs’ Home and I went searching for my cat,” Wittman told police.
“The only thing I really treasure in this world is that cat and it was taken away from me.
“And through anxiety, I acted irrationally and I didn’t think about the consequences of my actions or the fallout or – by what happened. I was only thinking about saving my cat because my cat has saved me from killing myself so many times.”
Wittman said he didn’t have any intention of harming the worker, and “thought it best to make a tactical withdrawal”.
“I could imagine she’d be scared s***less and she’d be having nightmares for a long time
… I really hope they give her counselling that I never got.
“The original plan was to sneak in … grab my cat … get the f*** out … not engage unless absolutely necessary.”
Judge Allen said Wittman’s offending – “as serious as it is and as horrific its impact on its victim was” – was not motivated by personal enrichment.
He also noted Wittman’s early guilty plea, no prior criminal convictions, genuine remorse, mental illness and a possible autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. His PTSD was linked to suffering serious, criminal childhood abuse.
He said the community was best protected by Wittman continuing psychological and psychiatric treatment after his release supervised by parole.
Wittman was jailed for up to six years, including a minimum non-parole period of three years. His term includes 410 days served in pre-sentence detention.
