Tom McLean, 24, was sentenced on Wednesday to six months in jail for his role in the December 15 assault, committed alongside his older brother.

He was driving erratically on the Hume Freeway, side-by-side with the truck, before both vehicles turned off at Melrose Drive and the McLean brothers forced the truck driver to pull over.

Jack McLean smashed the victim with a metal spirit level multiple times in the middle of Melrose Drive, while Tom McLean stood by holding a wheel brace.

Magistrate Ian Watkins told Wodonga Magistrates Court it was not clear why the victim was attacked.

“The issues did not justify your behaviour in any way,” he said.

“There were people with children who watched your behaviour and I’m satisfied they were terrified.”

McLean previously pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, affray, making a threat to kill and intentionally damaging property.

He was sentenced to five months’ jail for the new charges and one extra month for contravening a corrections order, plus he will have to complete another corrections order on his release including 75 hours of work and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse and mental health issues.

The previous corrections order was imposed as punishment for McLean’s involvement in the T-shirt gang, which conducted burglaries in North East towns, but he completed only 47 of the required 150 hours of community work.

Magistrate Ian Watkins warned McLean could spend his life in and out of custody unless he changed his ways.

“It’s a shoddy waste of a life to spend it the way you have,” he said.