Geraldton man Victor Jordan Oliver jailed over scissor-stab attack of police officer

A Geraldton man with a long-standing psychotic illness who stabbed a police officer in the face with a pair of scissors in Carnarvon has been sentenced to nine months jail for the attack. In Geraldton District Court on Monday, Victor Jordan Oliver, 28, was convicted of the March 13 attack outside a Carnarvon Centrelink office. Prosecutor Paul Dixon said police were called to the scene after Oliver became enraged at the Centrelink office after staff refused to give the man money. “Police, who were on route, carried out checks on the offender, revealing a photograph that there was an outstanding District Court warrant for the arrest of the offender,” he said. Three responding officers attempted to arrest Oliver when he swung his left fist with a pair of scissors “protruding from his knuckles” at the victim’s head causing a 3.5 centimetre laceration to the victim’s face. Oliver’s lawyer, Eva Svanberg, said the defence accepted those facts but added her client became upset after Centrelink declined an emergency payment to assist in him getting back to Geraldton. “He says he felt somewhat threatened and he lashed out, but he wants me to make it very clear to the court he understands he shouldn’t have,” she said. “He is remorseful for what he did to the police officer.” Sentencing Oliver, Judge Bruce Goetze said the minimum sentence for assaulting a public officer had recently been set at nine months because the West Australian Parliament regarded the offence so seriously. “You’re just a couple of inches above his neck,” he said. “You could have inflicted a serious injury on him and it’s more by good luck than management that you didn’t. “I’m not allowed to send you to prison for anything shorter than nine months for your attack on the policeman.” At the time of the offending Oliver was on a suspended sentence for carrying a pair of scissors with intent to cause fear and threatening to kill relating to his mum and brother. For the breach of this suspended sentence he was sentenced to three months jail and nine months for the assault on the police officer, resulting in a one-year jail term.