A man with a history of domestic violence who held police at bay for hours in a Lavington siege during which he threatened to fire a pistol has been jailed for 16 months.
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Dale Mastenbroek was clearly shocked by the jail term, dropping his shoulders and emitting a loud breath, before appealing for a different sentence.
“Am I eligible for an ICO (an intensive corrections order),” he asked magistrate Rodney Brender.
But Mr Brender said he wasn’t, because living in Wodonga meant he could not be supervised by NSW Community Corrections.
Mastenbroek was seen pacing inside the Lavington unit of his long-time girlfriend during the siege armed with a knife.
But when he told them about a pistol, negotiating police immediately withdrew before widening an exclusion zone around the home.
Mastenbroek, 38, had told negotiators he was willing to surrender, then suddenly became agitated and changed his mind.
“What are you packing?” he asked police. “I’ve got a Glock and I’ll shoot through the window and you’re all done.”
Mastenbroek, who previously pleaded guilty to use an offensive weapon to prevent detention and assault, the latter over an earlier incident, never had a gun.
Defence solicitor Graham Lamond had argued for Mastenbroek to be given a non-custodial sentence, by way of unpaid community work.
The court was told that Mastenbroek, who has previously served a 10-month jail term for domestic violence-related assault and stalking, was charged on September 2, 2018, with assault.
A condition of his bail was that not enter his long-time girlfriend’s unit in Lavington nor go within one kilometre of the address.
But a few weeks later, on October 12, Mastenbroek was at the unit with her drinking alcohol.
Police said an agitated Mastenbroek spoke on the phone with his father about 4pm.
At 11pm, the girlfriend went outside to avoid a confrontation with Mastenbroek.
Her son arrived 15 minutes later and heard Mastenbroek yelling and screaming inside.
He then spoke to Mastenbroek, who locked the front door to prevent his girlfriend from going back inside.
Police arrived at 11.45pm to find the girlfriend and several others milling outside.
Armed only with the knife, Mastenbroek kept police at bay for more than four hours before they “breached the front door” and, after searching until 5am, found him hiding under a bed.
Mastenbroek was ordered to serve 10 months in custody before becoming eligible for release on parole on August 11.
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