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Weekend Edition
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Friday, August 15, 2025
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PRIZE FEAST FOR GALA BALL Project 365’s Emma Merlo, Steve Manning, Baxter and Pete Rourke and Rob Humphreys are looking forward to tomorrow evening’s fundraising gala ball, where 18 AFL guernseys will be up for auction. Story page 3 PHOTO: Bailey Zimmerman
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Brighter days for businesses
Page 3
Sidney Nolan artwork gifted to gallery
Page 16
Payback time for Rovers
Sport
PRISON TIME FOR BAD NEIGHBOUR Defendant admits menacing abuse, tells court “Wangaratta has had a gutful of me and vice versa”
A Wangaratta man, who believed the city “had a gutful” of him, was given two months in jail following vitriolic abuse of neighbours and others who had protection orders against him. The 65-year-old appeared at Seymour Magistrates’ Court from Hopkins Correctional Centre on
Thursday, dressed in green and jotting notes as he heard his 60day sentence, with 23 days already served. He will also be placed on a 12-month community corrections order upon his release, despite being found unsuitable. It was an assessment Magistrate
Olivia Trumble said was not a surprise. Defence counsel Geoff Clancy said his client insisted on being placed on the order to compel him to get help for his alcohol abuse. The order will also include supervision and behaviour change programs on the insistence of cor-
rections officer Robert Parkinson, who deemed the man a high risk. The defendant pleaded guilty to continuous, “disgusting” harassment of multiple people in Wangaratta. Across incidents from April to July, the man was found to have yelled vulgar abuse at neighbours
on numerous occasions and pushed a shopping trolley in front of a driving car on Ovens Street. On 23 July, a day after he was bailed for his offending, the defendant brought his neighbour across the road to tears when police arrived to another incident of abuse. ■ Continued page 4