Man sentenced for harassment and dangerous driving

Tuesday 01 December 2020

A 33-year-old who was found guilty of "repeatedly" harassing three people and "trying to take the law into his own hands" against people pulling wheelies on mopeds has been sentenced to 140 hours of community service.

Darren Salituri was found guilty of harassing three relatives and, in a separate incident, driving dangerously on Le Val de Terres.

The harassment charge related to what Crown Prosecutor Fiona Russell referred to as a series of "abusive" and "threatening" social media posts between November 2018 and October 2019, in addition to a physical encounter with one of the complainants. 

Advocate Russell said Salituri had made the comments via several different Facebook profiles, some of which included "sexually and racially charged insults".

There was also an incident at North Side Fish and Chip Shop in June last year while one of the complainants was waiting for her order. She alleged that Salituri, who was also there, was "staring aggressively" at her and, on his way out, told her: "I am not finished with you yet."

In another social media post, he said he hoped one of the complainants "would be in a car crash".

Two of the victims said they had been physically affected by the harassment and were on medication as a result of the stress it had caused them. 

Pictured: Salituri's sentence for harassment was imposed as a direct alternative to 12 weeks in prison.

The other incident Salituri was sentenced for at the Magistrate's Court was a dangerous driving offence on 18 March this year.

Salituri was being followed by eight people on mopeds while he was driving up Le Val de Terres. They were pulling wheelies, driving two or three abreast and reportedly would not overtake when Salituri slowed down to let them pass. 

In what was described as a "knee-jerk reaction" by his Advocate, Salituri stopped his vehicle and started reversing back down the road towards them, coming to halt before he made contact. 

He then drove away at a slow speed but was apprehended by police shortly afterwards. 

"They were pulling wheelies, which is why I did what I did," Salituri told police. "They were driving like d*ckheads [so I decided to] teach them a lesson and sh*t them up a bit."

Defence Advocate Andrew Ayres, who said he had represented Salituri for a number of years, refuted part of the Probation Service report, saying that his client had not received any prior warnings about his behaviour by the police before they arrested him in March this year. Since that time, he said his client had made "great strides", setting up his own business and steering clear of any offending behaviour. 

Advocate Ayres described the harassment as the "perpetuation of a family feud." He acknowledged that some of the comments were abusive and crossed the line into criminal behaviour, while others were just "embarrassing facts" that he was exposing on their social media pages. 

He added: "I have to accept that Mr Salituri's conduct has become criminal because of its effect on his victims and the protracted and repeated nature of it." 

Advocate Ayres urged the Court to consider a community service order instead of a prison sentence. 

"He has never had a community service order before. He is hard-working and would be a valuable asset. It is about time he made reparation to the community [through unpaid work]."

Pictured: Salituri was told to stop using Facebook as a "weapon" against others. 

Judge Graeme McKerrell said the comments Salituri had made on social media were "both pathetic and deeply unpleasant".

"When used by people like you, [social media] has become one of the worst developments in recent times," he said, adding that it allowed "cowardly" people to "spout vile comments" behind the safety of a computer screen. 

"You have a history of using social media weapon."

Similarly, Judge McKerrell said Salituri had weaponised his vehicle and effectively looked to "take the law into his own hands".

The Judge agreed that a CSO was the right way to go and sentenced Salituri to 100 hours of unpaid work for the harassment charges and 40 hours, consecutive, for the dangerous driving.

The harassment sentence was imposed as a direct alternative to 12 weeks in prison. The defendant was also banned from driving for three months.