Bunbury man Benjamin Graham Tamm jailed for 12 months for chasing man with knife, smashing windows with bat

A 30-year-old man who previously avoided jail for making threatening phone calls to his ex-partner has been sent to jail after chasing a man down his driveway armed with a knife and later using a baseball bat to smash a car window. Benjamin Graham Tamm appeared in the Bunbury Magistrates Court on Monday where he was sentenced to a 12-month jail term for a number of charges including two counts of criminal damage, breaching a violence restraining order, and being armed to cause fear. During the afternoon of October 15 last year, Tamm was at his Carey Park apartment when he got in a physical altercation with a man who was temporarily staying at the apartment opposite his. After the altercation, the court was told Tamm went into his apartment then re-emerged, armed with a kitchen knife, and proceeded to chase the man down the driveway. After chasing the man away and sparking concern from fellow residents within the apartment complex, Tamm threw a recycling bin through an apartment window, causing it to smash, before he returned to his own apartment again and retrieved a baseball bat. While armed with the bat, Tamm confronted a woman who was filming the altercation on her mobile phone, telling her to stop filming him before slapping the phone out of her hand. Tamm then used the baseball bat to smash the rear window of the woman’s car. The court was also told Tamm was bound by a violence restraining order that protected the victim, prohibiting him from behaving in a violent and intimidating way towards her. The offending came nine months after Tamm was sentenced to a 15-month jail term, conditionally suspended for 18 months, after he used a private number to make more than 90 phone calls to his ex-partner in the space of several hours, breaching a family violence restraining order in the process. During the calls, Tamm did not identify himself but made numerous threats to sexually assault his ex-partner, kill her and then commit suicide. In the calls, Tamm could be hearing saying “you’ll find out who I am, I’m in your street, I will kill you c. . .”. Tamm could be heard in another call saying “you belong with me s. . .” and “if I can’t have you, no one can, I will just have to kill you then me”. While Tamm ultimately breached his conditional suspended imprisonment order for reoffending, the court was told Tamm also previously breached the order twice for not complying with its requirements. In submissions, the court was told Tamm was initially challenged to a fight with the man after he was taunted by him several times prior. However, duty counsel said suffering several blows to the head and likely intoxication contributed to Tamm having a hazy recollection of the offending. It was also submitted that despite suffering a relapse into drug use after some personal hardships, Tamm had since continued complying with his order and attended many counselling sessions. In sentencing, Magistrate Michelle Harries labelled Tamm’s offending as “incredibly serious”, noting that others living in the apartment complex “must have been incredibly frightened” by what took place. However, Ms Harries also acknowledged that Tamm had a history of having to cope with a great deal from being diagnosed with a mild cognitive impairment, along with dealing with hearing and speech impediments. “I know this is not the outcome you wanted but I really trust that moving forward, you get the help that you need,” she said.