By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A panel-beater has been jailed over a violent home invasion and attack against a family of three in Carrum Downs.
Jacque Dalais, 46, pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court to home invasion with intent to assault with weapons just after midnight on Sunday 18 October 2020.
His friends and co-conspirators Patrick Iaulualo and Daniel Heaven had been recently jailed over the same attack.
Unlike his two friends, Dalais wasn’t armed and didn’t carry out the bashings. And so he wasn’t charged with assaults or causing injury.
But his limited role in the “violent” and “terrifying” episode remained “very serious” offending against residents who were unknown to the men, Judge John Kelly said on 7 December.
The trio arrived in an Uber while the residents were sleeping.
Iaulualo, who was holding a butane torch, tried the front security screen door and then kicked it in.
At this time, Dalais knocked the house’s CCTV camera off its brackets.
He remained on the front porch as Iaulualo and Heaven entered and were fought off by a male resident wielding a baseball bat.
After being beaten back, Iaulualo and Heaven re-entered the house with Dalais.
The former pair assaulted two male residents including striking one to the head with the torch.
That man suffered a broken nose and bruising to his eye, face, jaw and back.
Judge Kelly said Dalais’s claims of remorse were undercut by his attempts to “sanitise” his involvement.
It was accepted Dalais wasn’t initially aware Iaulualo was armed with a torch.
However the judge rejected Dalais’s claims that he was unaware of the intended home invasion and trespass until Iaulualo kicked in the door, and that he knocked down the CCTV in “panic”.
The accused argued he wore a mask during the home invasion due to Covid health-and-safety protocols.
None of the victims’ statements supported his claim to be the “voice of reason” who remonstrated with his co-offenders to stop their attack, Judge Kelly said.
One of the victims stated his life had changed forever since the attack. He no longer slept well, regularly sought counselling and felt uneasy about life.
His wife, who was hospitalized after falling during the intrusion, had been since diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She said she could no longer be in the house without locking all the doors.
Dalais, who set up a successful Chelsea panel-beating business Bayview Panels, gave away his motorcycle restoration equipment to cut his associations with certain peers, Judge Kelly said.
Prior to the home invasion, he’d descended into cocaine use and drinking after a series of family tragedies.
Since attending residential rehab for three months, he’d remained abstinent.
The judge rated his rehabilitation prospects as “good”, noted his early guilty plea and his volunteer help for disability clients.
His prior conviction for unlawful assault in 2019 was of “marginal” relevance, Judge Kelly said.
Iaulualo and Heaven, who had relevant and more serious priors, were jailed for up to four-and-a-half years and four years and three months respectively.
Judge Kelly noted that Iaulualo was the instigator of the fateful plan.
Dalais was jailed for up to two and a half years, with an 18-month non-parole period.
