THE teenager who admitted to bashing a bakery worker after he wouldn’t give him a cigarette has had his sentence adjourned.
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The 17-year-old appeared via video link in Tamworth Children’s Court from Acmena – a juvenile detention centre.
He’s been in custody since his arrest shortly after the March 25 attack at the Robert St Shopping Village.
An Aboriginal Legal Service (ALS) solicitor said his client “was self-medicating” at the time and sought a specialist mental health assessment ahead of sentencing.
Magistrate Roger Prowse ordered the specialist psychiatric report which is expected to take at least six weeks.
“There not being an application for bail, it's refused,” he said.
The teenager pleaded guilty in April to one charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm stemming from the incident.
According to police facts, the teenager used ice on the night of March 24, and gained entry into a local hotel in Tamworth where he “consumed alcohol and has consumed further amounts of an illicit drug in the form of ecstasy and acid”.
He left the hotel sometime between 1.30am and 2am and remembers sitting on a bench seat in Robert St where he saw the 49-year-old Crust and Cream Bakery employee leave work.
He asked the man for a cigarette, but the victim declined, facts state.
“The young person has become aggressive and rushed toward the victim,” facts state.
The man “feared for his safety” and ran the other way, but tripped and fell to the ground hitting his face.
According to the facts, the teenager picked the worker up off the ground, and punched him with a closed fist causing him to be knocked to the ground.
The victim has since been released from hospital.