Richard Pusey, the man jailed for filming four dying police officers after a crash on Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway, could be a free man as early as this week despite pleading guilty to a series of other offences, including assaulting a woman.
Pusey has spent all but six weeks of the past 16 months in custody and on Monday appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court, via a video link from prison, to admit to assaulting the woman, two road-rage incidents, sending menacing emails to a bank worker and smashing a slab of beer – crimes all committed over the past three years.
Richard Pusey (right) when arrested for filming the dying police officers last year.Credit:Nine News
Taking out Pusey’s 10-month sentence for filming the dying officers on his mobile phone and other related crimes, he has served 118 days on remand for the other offending and his lawyer said on Monday that that was enough. The main submission put forward by police also does not push for more prison time.
Magistrate Hayley Bate will sentence Pusey on Wednesday morning.
On Monday Pusey admitted unlawfully assaulting the woman at his Fitzroy apartment on December 27 last year by dragging her up some stairs by the arm amid an argument. Pusey also put a noose around his neck that night and climbed onto the roof during a stand-off with police. He was on bail at the time and taken back into custody when he came off the roof.
Police had earlier alleged Pusey put the noose around the woman’s neck, but the court heard that allegation was withdrawn during discussions between his lawyers and prosecutors.
Richard Pusey has admitted other crimes including assaulting a woman, road rage and sending menacing emails to a bank worker.
Prosecutor Meagan McDonnell said police also attended Pusey’s home two days before that incident, after getting a report of yelling and loud music, but that he wouldn’t come to the door. Afterwards, Pusey sent homophobic, racist and insulting text messages to officers who attended.
On the night of the assault, he threatened to hang himself and the woman, and “kill everyone”, Ms McDonnell said.
Pusey was in April jailed for 10 months for outraging public decency and other charges after filming the dying officers in the minutes after they were hit by a truck on the Eastern Freeway in Kew on April 22 last year.
Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and constables Glen Humphris and Josh Prestney were all hit and killed when a truck driven by Mohinder Singh, addled by drug use and fatigue, veered into the emergency lane and hit the officers and their stationary vehicles.
The officers had pulled Pusey over for speeding at 149km/h in his black Porsche and were discussing impounding his vehicle when they were hit. Pusey was urinating at the side of the road when the truck hit the officers. Singh was this year jailed for 22 years.
Pusey was granted bail in October last year over those charges, and went back into custody after he assaulted the woman.
On Monday, he pleaded guilty to unlawful assault and other charges over the incident at his home.
He also pleaded guilty to road-rage incidents in October 2018 and March 2019, sending menacing emails to a bank worker in August 2019 and dropping a $50 slab of beer in a Fitzroy bottle shop on December 3 last year and leaving without paying for it.
But defence counsel Carmen Randazzo, SC, said Pusey had served a combined 118 days in custody over the five incidents, on top of the 10 months he served for the charges stemming from the aftermath of the fatal crash.
“He should receive an aggregate sentence of time served on all these matters,” Ms Randazzo told Ms Bate.
Ms Randazzo said Pusey had been in touch with two psychologists, who were both keen to work with him once he was out of jail. Pusey had mental health issues and past problems with drugs and alcohol, his lawyer said, but if he was “committed to treatment, he can be a contributing member of the community and can be offence-free”.
Ms Randazzo said alcohol and drugs played no part in his offending against the woman on December 27.
During the hearing, Pusey told the magistrate he changed his medication five days before the incident.
Police are not pushing for Pusey to serve more time in jail unless he refuses to serve a community correction order.
Ms McDonnell said the former mortgage broker should be put on an order, with treatment, to deter him from future offending.
But Pusey’s lawyer said he would not agree to a condition to complete a correction order as he feared, his lawyer said, “that might be setting him up for a fall”.
The prosecutor countered that if Pusey did refuse to agree to serve a correction order, he should serve more time in prison.
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