Martin Klaver, 47, of Shepparton, was found guilty by a jury in Shepparton County Court of reckless conduct endangering serious injury.
On Thursday, October 24, he was jailed for his actions.
The court heard Klaver rammed a woman’s car three times after following her around Shepparton after she picked up a friend in Archer St about 12.20am.
With Klaver following her, the woman pulled into a driveway in River Rd in the hope he would drive past.
However, he stopped behind her and then drove at her fast, stopping only metres from her vehicle.
Fearing Klaver would crash into her, the woman drove away at speeds she estimated to be about 160km/h.
Klaver followed closely, before ramming her car three times from behind.
He only left after the woman sought help from workers in a traffic control vehicle who were stopped on Doyles Rd.
In summing up what had happened in the case, Judge John Kelly said that Klaver, who represented himself at his trial, said the woman and the man were not in the car, but rather an “olive-skinned man in his 30s and a 14-year-old runaway girl”.
He also said the other car “must have been damaged elsewhere”.
Police body-worn camera footage from when officers turned up where the woman had stopped at the Shepparton-Euroa Rd and River Rd intersection showed the woman and man were in the car.
Judge Kelly also spoke of how Klaver told the jury he was serving a jail sentence for supplying drugs to a teenage girl, before calling police from that case to give evidence in this one.
The court heard how he supplied that girl with drugs in return for sexual favours.
“It appeared you were keen to mitigate that trial,” Judge Kelly said.
Klaver told the jury how he was concerned in this case what the “buff olive-skinned man” he said was driving the car would do to the 14-year-old girl.
The judge spoke of another judge’s sentencing comments that Klaver had been methamphetamine-affected in the matter where he had been jailed for five years and three months for supplying drugs to a child, grooming a child and stalking.
However, Judge Kelly said he was “unable to determine” if Klaver had been methamphetamine-affected when he rammed the woman’s car in this case.
But he said Klaver had subjected the woman and man in the car to “a terrifying ordeal”.
“Your conduct in pursuing (the woman’s) car at 160km/h on a dark country road was unhinged,” Judge Kelly said.
The judge also said Klaver’s prospects of rehabilitation were poor.
Klaver was sentenced to two years in prison, with 14 months of that time to be served on top of the sentence he was already serving for the other matter.
Judge Kelly also set a new global non-parole period on both sentences of four years and five months, backdated to March 6 when Klaver had been taken into custody.
10°C