Man shot in face says he relives horrific moment every time he looks in mirror

A man who was shot in the face and stomach in a case of attempted murder has told a court: “Every time I look in the mirror to shave I relive the moment again.”

He had been called a “kiddie fiddler” when Rebecca Dulcie Parlov and Bradley Joe Roberts barged their way into his friend’s home in Spence on 11 March, 2021.

Sugimatatihuna Bernard Gabriel Mena followed them inside and shot him with a sawn-off .22 rifle.

He was placed in an induced coma due to the severity of his injuries and didn’t wake up until a week later. A doctor reported “it was just luck” the injuries hadn’t been fatal.

The victim said he had wondered “how long it will be until someone comes to finish the job”, the ACT Supreme Court heard at the trio’s sentencing hearing on Thursday (6 April).

He said the lies about paedophilia had affected his anxiety and he had questioned whether he was “going to get shot in public” because people might think the stories that were reported by the media, which covered the trial and retrial of the trio, were true.

A prosecutor has previously said the accusation that he was a “kiddie fiddler” was “nonsense”.

The victim also said the memory of seeing Mena come through the door and shoot him played in his head over and over.

“My face is in constant pain,” he said, saying his jaw no longer worked as it should.

He said he found it difficult to hold a job in the construction industry because loud noises made his anxiety flare up.

“I hope that one day soon I can go back to living a normal life,” he said.

“But until then, I’m just taking it one day at a time.”

Discussing what facts could be determined for the case, Mena’s barrister Slade Howell argued Justice David Mossop could find the reason his client took the gun to the home in Spence was more about intimidation rather than making a decision to use it.

He argued the trio knew they were going to a “drug house” to confront the victim, who was involved in the supply of drugs.

Also, he argued that once Parlov and Robert went inside the home, the situation developed “quickly and dynamically”, partly as the victim picked up a knife and was “posturing in anticipation of a confrontation” before Mena came through the door.

A clinical psychologist, Vanessa Quigley, said Mena had longstanding substance abuse problems and had been on medications for ADHD for a short time.

She said while he had the intellect to understand the consequences of his actions in general, people with ADHD did not have the ability to recognise the consequences of their actions at the height of the moment.

When Crown prosecutor Trent Hickey gave his submissions, he said “not everybody with ADHD goes around, breaks into someone’s house and shoots them”.

Barrister Keegan Lee, representing Parlov, said Justice Mossop could find that the motivation was to confront the victim about the allegations that he was a paedophile.

He noted how his client had invited the victim and his friend to come outside when they were at the house and argued while there had been an agreement to have a “face-to-face” confrontation with the victim, this was not necessarily going to happen inside the house.

But Mr Hickey said the idea that the trio was just going to talk was “nonsense” because “they could have done that on the phone”.

Mr Hickey also agreed with Justice Mossop when he said the court knew nothing about “why these three people decided to be vigilantes”.

The author who prepared a court report for Parlov also spoke to the court, saying she had been working as a peer mentor for her accommodation unit in jail and had been supporting other inmates.

At the end of the trio’s second Supreme Court trial in December 2022, Mena was found guilty of the charges of attempted murder and committing an act endangering life.

Also, he, Parlov and Roberts were all found guilty of aggravated burglary.

A trial had been held against the trio in August 2022, but it ended with a hung jury as jurors were unable to come to unanimous verdicts.

The sentencing hearing was adjourned to continue on Tuesday (11 April).