A woman with a long history of violence who intimidated a man connected to witnesses in an Albury child abuse trial has been placed on a three-month curfew.
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Tanya Lorraine Kellett must not leave her home in Matra Place, North Albury, between 9pm and 6am.
The 33-year-old had been repeatedly warned that her offending, coupled with her criminal record, meant she faced jail time.
That is what she was given in Albury Local Court this week, sentenced to seven months in custody.
But Kellett will get to hang on to her freedom after it was decided she must serve the sentence in the community, by way of an intensive corrections order.
Previously, in a case where Kellett pleaded guilty to assaulting another woman at Lavington Square shopping centre, magistrate Sally McLaughlin pointed out Kellett had about six assault or intimidation matters on her criminal record since 2020.
She was in a "precarious position" on sentencing, Ms McLaughlin said, given that "history of violence".
In March, 2022, Kellett used a metal bar to strike a woman three times, while in the company of three other people.
That came after she punched the victim.
Four months later, Kellett was sentenced to a nine-month intensive corrections order over the incident on charges of being armed with the intention of committing an indictable offence and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of others.
Six months ago, magistrate Leslie Mabbutt convicted Kellett and placed her on a supervised two-year community corrections order for punching the other shopper at Lavington Square on May 15, 2023.
"Come back here in that two-year period and there's only one result," he said, having highlighted Kellett's "shocking" and "appalling" record for violence.
"And people should be able to go about their business at a public shopping centre without being assaulted."
The intimidation charge - for which sentencing was delayed by several months as efforts were made to get Kellett's mental health issues addressed - resulted from an incident inside the Albury courthouse on June 26, 2023.
Defence lawyer Tim Hemsley had told the court how Kellett was also detoxifying herself, at home, from her illicit drug addiction.
The court has heard how Kellett had had sporadic engagement with experts in order to engage with mental health and illicit drug addiction counselling and treatment.
This in turn caused delays since November, when a section 11 application - under the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act, to have her bailed into an appropriate program - was made.
The court was told Kellett threatened the father of two children due to give evidence in the District Court child sex abuse trial of her brother.
The two children left the building with their father about 2.30pm after the first day of the trial on June 26, 2023.
Kellett had not long been excluded from the Albury courthouse by a sheriff's officer over her use of a mobile phone. She was loudly hostile as she was ushered out of the building.
Police said the children and their father had just been in a meeting with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions about giving evidence.
But as they were walking out of the courthouse and down the exit ramp onto Olive Street, Kellett began yelling at them.
'I know my rights, I am allowed to be here, you're all f---ed, you're all going to end up in the ground," she said.
Kellett continued to yell and make comments at the victim as he tried to move his children away from her towards their car.
The man gave a statement to Albury police the following day about Kellett, who had been in court to support her brother.
Kellett's jail term on the intimidation conviction will run until November 16, 2024.
Under the order she "must continue to attend drug and alcohol counselling as directed by (Albury) Community Corrections".
Kellett was also convicted and fined $120 after previously pleading guilty to an unrelated charge of possessing a prohibited drug.
In 2012, Kellett, then 20, was handed three-month suspended jail terms for crimes including stomping on the roof of another woman's vehicle.
"She called me a slut, so I jumped on her car," she told police.
"If she had kept her mouth shut, her car would have been fine."
Kellett also stole a television by hiding it under a blanket in her pram.
She was placed on a 12-month community corrections order in 2020 after she punched a woman three times in the face at a Lavington bus stop in retaliation for the victim allegedly smacking her stepson.
