Sentencing of a South West mother who assaulted a woman during a school drop-off delayed for mediation

The South West mother who assaulted another woman in front of children during a school drop-off has been told she must mediate with the lady she injured. Ashleigh Louise Knox, 26, appeared in the Bunbury Magistrates Court last Thursday after pleading guilty to three charges including common assault, damaging property and dangerous driving in February. On December 2 at 8.40am, the woman was driving along Jeffery Road in Glen Iris when she overtook another driver in a 40km/h school zone and then braked quickly resulting in a rear-end collision. Knox then got out of her car, pulled the other driver’s door open and punched her, before returning and pulling out the victim’s dash camera, trying to smash it and then dropping it down a nearby storm drain. Knox was due to be sentenced on May 5, but Magistrate Linda Keane said it could benefit both women if they were to have a supervised mediation before the offender was sentenced. “What may assist (the victim) is meeting with Ms Knox so she could apologise,” Ms Keane said. “Perhaps it would help if (the victim) could see that the person who did this to her is not a person to be afraid of. “It seems to me this could be of benefit to both women.” Ms Keane said the women should now find a suitable date for meditation in the next eight weeks and that it was “understandable there would be some anxiety”. “This offending warrants imprisonment. . . I think that it very clear,” she said. “Given the nature of the offending and what I have read about Miss Knox, it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a community perspective for her to go to jail. “This is a very difficult matter because the offending that is in front of me today is very serious. “It would have been terrifying for (the victim), but also for the people who were present, including young children.” Knox is due to reappear for sentencing on July 1.