Vigilante imprisoned over four-hour attack
Murray Bridge man Brett James Caire will stay behind bars for at least another year.
A Murray Bridge man has been sentenced to at least two and a half years’ prison for his role in a horrifying vigilante attack.
Brett James Caire will stay behind bars until at least next September after being sentenced for charges of false imprisonment, assault, blackmail and theft in Adelaide’s District Court on Thursday.
Caire’s brother, Charlie Michael Edward Caire, had used a fake profile on the gay dating app Grindr to lure an elderly man to his house one night last February, believing that the victim was a paedophile who had preyed on a teenaged acquaintance.
The victim was bound, blindfolded and assaulted by both brothers over a four-hour period.
Brett Caire, who was high on methylamphetamine at the time, tasered the victim, injected him with a needle which he claimed contained AIDS, and punched and kicked him.
The brothers also demanded $5000 from the victim and later stole his car.
Judge Liesl Chapman said Caire’s prospects for rehabilitation were not as good as those of his younger brother, who received a suspended sentence in April.
She said Brett Caire was about 16 years older and had self-medicated using alcohol, cannabis and methylamphetamine for years.
In that context, time in prison – where he could not access illicit drugs – would actually do him some good, she suggested.
A prison sentence would also keep the community safer.
“Vigilante justice, as it is called, must be strongly denounced,” Judge Chapman said.
“People who feel aggrieved by what they think is the conduct of others are simply not entitled to go out and inflict physical violence upon those others to get retribution.
“In other words, people must not take the law into their own hands.”
She sentenced Caire to five years, two months and 22 days in prison, with a non-parole period of two years and seven months.
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