IT SEEMED a normal day at work for a Wagga business manager, but behind the scenes an assailant was plotting a violent ambush.
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Graham Albert Munro had a personal axe to grind with the manager, and on November 2 last year drove to his intended victim’s Edward Street workplace before telephoning the man to ensure he was there.
Munro then walked into the business and without speaking a word punched his target in the head, causing bleeding.
After Munro threw four or five more punches, his victim threw one back before Munro threw an office chair at the other man, hitting him in the head and dazing him.
Then Munro produced a 10cm-long knife, saying “I’ll stab ya” and “I’ll kill ya” as the pair grappled.
“During the altercation the victim received two lacerations to the left side of his torso,” said police facts tendered to Wagga Local Court this week.
“At one point during the altercation the accused held the knife at the back of the victim’s neck and said ‘Can you feel that? I could kill ya’.”
Munro then left the store and was arrested shortly afterwards on Bourke Street.
Munro, 38, of Tolland, has been in custody since then and faced court on Monday for sentencing after pleading guilty to five offences.
His solicitor, David Barron, said Munro at the time of the attack had been suffering depression, working long hours and not acting rationally.
“He was not in a good frame of mind at all,” Mr Barron said.
“He was just digging a hole for himself at the time.”
Magistrate Michael Crompton rejected Mr Barron’s request that Munro be released now on parole or on a suspended sentence, saying the objective seriousness of the offending meant there had to be further imprisonment.
Munro was given a backdated head sentence of 12 months, with seven months’ non-parole, for using an offensive weapon with intent.
He was given concurrent four-month fixed terms for intimidation and for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Munro was fined a total of $900 and put off the road for two years for a drink-driving offence and driving while suspended.