A former Dubbo tradie who punched two McDonald's employees after attempting to go through the drive-through with an excavator, says he's found more to do than "getting on the grog".
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Mitchell Bergman, 28, was a passenger in a Toyota Hilux, towing a large excavator, when it attempted to go through the McDonald's drive-through on Cobra Street in Dubbo.
As a result the excavator collided with the height sign, causing it to fall to the ground and break.
According to police two McDonald's workers were concerned Bergman and the driver were trying to escape and said "you need to stop so we can sort this out", before Bergman got out of the ute and unclipped the chain fence to leave.
Bergman then yelled at one of the employees "do you want to play?", before he approached the staff member and punched him in his right cheek.
The other employee asked him what he was doing, before Bergman turned and punched him in the face, too.
Bergman got back in the ute and the pair drove off.
Police arrived and viewed CCTV footage and later spoke with the driver of the ute, who told them Bergman was the passenger.
In Dubbo Local Court, Bergman pleaded guilty to two counts of common assault.
Defence lawyer David Hemsworth said the offences had occurred during a time of his life "where he wasn't doing very well".
The court heard Bergman had come out of a disagreement with his boss about his contract finishing, but had since relocated to Newcastle.
"I'm instructed now he doesn't drink," Mr Hemsworth said. "He says there's more things to do in Newcastle than getting on the grog."
The court heard Bergman had been sentenced to two community corrections orders for violence-related offences in March, for incidents that had occurred after this attack.
Magistrate Wilson said Bergman was "fortunate" he wasn't on the community corrections orders at the time of this offence, and could not be a factor in his sentence.
"There's no doubt that alcohol was a contributing factor, but that's no sort of excuse for this type of behaviour," he said.
Bergman was convicted and sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order and fined $1500.