Jeff Tougher's son Steven was fatally stabbed 55 times outside a McDonald’s in NSW in April, 2023.
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00:00The scenario I'm talking about is, if I'm a junkie and you're an ambulance person, you're a paramedic,
00:07if I punch you in the face for whatever reason, currently the minimum sentence is a $550 fine.
00:13So that's no deterrence for doing what you do.
00:18I'll go to court, I'll get the $550 fine, I'll leave the court, I'm never going to pay it because I don't have it.
00:25So I leave the court, there's no deterrent for me not to do it again.
00:32But the sad part about that is, three months down the track, when I'm OD'ing on the footpath,
00:38you are contract bound to come and do it with me again.
00:41So the idea of the 12 month suspended sentence is for these people to get their issues sorted out for the reasons why they did it in the first place.
00:53Because some of these people may not have ever had access to those things.
00:57They may not have ever had a program to deal with anger management or drug issues or whatever.
01:04So I'm not looking for people to go to prison, I'm more looking for people to change the trajectories of their life.
01:12And that can change a lot in 12 months.
01:14So 12 months time, the perpetrator could be, who knows where.
01:19Hopefully in a better place.
01:20Hopefully in a better place, yeah, and it makes the world safer for frontline workers as well.