Year in review | A look back at police and court in 2023

In the hearing, she pleaded not guilty to 20 charges of poisoning medium-sized raptors with bait, poisoning 11 wedge-tailed eagles with bait, seven counts of animal cruelty that resulted in the death of six wedge-tailed eagles and a whistling kite, poisoning a whistling kite, and five counts of possessing wildlife.

Mrs Sloan pleaded guilty to 26 charges of wildlife possession, including four kangaroo joeys and 22 birds, mainly galahs, cockatoos and ducks.

The case comes about after carcasses of 271 dead birds and animals — most of which were wedge-tailed eagles or other birds of prey — were found in 2019 during an investigation into the poisoning of the birds in the Violet Town and Earlston areas.

The charges before the court do not relate to all the bird deaths, only those that died from July 2019 onwards.

Mrs Sloan will be sentenced this year.

Horror year for crashes

It was a horror year for crashes in the region, with 41 people dying in 32 crashes in an area that is within a 50-minute drive from Shepparton’s central business district.

The biggest number of fatalities in a single incident came from a crash between a car, truck and ute on the intersection of the Murray Valley Hwy and Labuan Rd at Strathmerton on April 20.

The five occupants of the ute all died in the crash. They included Cobram’s Debbie Markey, 60, and four international workers all aged in their 20s — Pin-Yu Wang, Hsin-Yu Chen, Wai Yan Lam and Zih-Yao Chen.

In September, Christopher Dillon Joannidis, 29, pleaded not guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to five counts of driving in a dangerous manner causing death and two counts of reckless conduct endangering life.

The case is continuing before the County Court.

The second highest number of fatalities from one crash came from a collision between a car and a ute at the intersection of Cosgrove-Lemnos Rd and Pine Lodge North Rd on January 5.

Four Indian visitors — Baljinder Singh, Harpel Singh, Bhupinder Sandu and Krishen Singh — who were all passengers in the car, died in the crash.

The car driver, Harinder Singh, 41, of Shepparton, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of dangerous driving causing death.

The case is continuing before the County Court.

Strathmerton postmaster killer sentenced

In July, Troy Matthew Maskell, 44, was sentenced to a maximum eight-year prison term after being found guilty by a jury of manslaughter over the killing of Strathmerton postmaster.

Maskell threw a one-litre bottle at John Burke, 73, hitting him in the head, at a roadhouse in Strathmerton in August 2021, hitting him in the head.

Maskell kicked Mr Burke’s hip as he fell, stomped on his glasses and returned to kick his victim again before asking the attendant where the CCTV cameras were kept and leaving.

Mr Burke was taken to hospital and died 11 weeks later due to blood clots that developed on his brain.

The attack came after Maskell’s girlfriend took offence at Mr Burke smiling at her child and asking how they were.

Maskell will have to serve five years before he can apply for parole.

Supermarket death

Mooroopna man Bjorn Delphine, 46, died after he was assaulted in a Mooroopna supermarket on May 22.

He died in hospital on June 5.

Matthew Atkinson, 20, of Shepparton, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court to the manslaughter of Mr Delphine.

He also pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking cannabis.

Atkinson will face the Shepparton Supreme Court later this year on the charges.

Strathmerton crop house

A total of 307 marijuana plants were seized during a raid on a Strathmerton crop house in June.

Police allege the plants of varying stages of maturity were found in 10 different rooms of the house, and there was what police described as a “drying room” in the shed.

The man who police allege was looking after the crop, Son Huu Bui, 44, was charged with cultivating a commercial quantity of a narcotic plant and possessing marijuana.

While Mr Bui normally lives in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, the court heard Mr Bui admitted to police he had been living at the Strathmerton house.

The matter is continuing before the courts.

Man jailed for attempted murder of wife

Mahmut Cigercioglu, 32, of Shepparton, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for trying to kill his wife in a suburban Shepparton street.

He was found guilty by a jury in the Supreme Court of the attempted murder of Lutfiye Kavci in October 2021.

Ms Kavci had left him three months earlier, but on this day she was driving in a Shepparton street when Cigercioglu stepped out in front of her car and said he “wanted to talk”.

Cigercioglu got in the car and drove her around the streets of Shepparton before getting out in Barton St, grabbed a knife from a garden bed, and stabbing Ms Kavci as she tried to run away.

He left her bleeding profusely in the street as he drove off.

At his sentencing in December, Cigercioglu was ordered to serve 12 years in jail before he is eligible for parole.

Woman dies after being shot

Shepparton woman Kiara Ferguson, 26, died from a gunshot wound in her McCubbin Dve home in April.

Her partner Adam Winmar is charged with possessing a firearm while a prohibited person and theft.

In December, he applied for his matter to be heard in the magistrates’ court rather than the supreme court.

In the summary jurisdiction application hearing, the prosecutor told the court Mr Winmar had made a firearm, which was designed to fire shotgun shells, months before his partner Kiara Ferguson’s death, and it was kept in a kitchen drawer or shoulder bag in their McCubbin Dve house.

The prosecutor said Mr Winmar told investigators at the time Ms Ferguson had found the homemade pipe gun, approached him while he was on the toilet, threw the gun towards him and said ‘what have I told you about this?’

The gun landed on the floor and discharged, fatally shooting Ms Ferguson, the prosecutor said.

Mr Winmar’s defence counsel said Mr Winmar was “extremely distressed at the accidental death of his partner” and not being able to attend her funeral or see his children since then.

A ruling will be made on the summary jurisdiction application in February.

Man stabbed at Mooroopna house party

A judge described the stabbing of a man at a party at a Mooroopna home in February as “senseless, shocking and savage violence”.

Brody-Jay Webster, 24, from Shepparton, pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court to intentionally causing injury and possessing cannabis.

He also pleaded guilty to a summary charge of committing an indictable offence while on bail.

Webster became angry at a man who had been invited to an after-party by his mother, and he told the man to leave.

The man agreed to leave but needed to get his keys from inside.

Webster would not let him and instead got a large knife from inside and ran at the man, stabbing him.

The court was told that without medical help, the victim would have died.

Webster’s defence counsel told the court that on the night, his client felt the man was “making jokes and insulting his family” and “lost it”.

Webster was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and three months.

Woman allegedly run over

A man allegedly chased his partner in a car and ran over her, breaking both her legs, in March.

The 47-year-old Goulburn Valley man was charged with intentionally causing serious injury, recklessly causing serious injury, driving in a dangerous manner that caused serious injury, driving while suspended, and failing to render assistance immediately after an accident.

Police were called to an incident where a person had been hit by a vehicle on Bridge Rd, Arcadia.

At a bail application at Shepparton Magistrates’ Court in April, the prosecutor alleged the man ran over his partner.

The matter is still before the courts.

Petrol station attendant orchestrated her own robbery

A petrol station attendant orchestrated a robbery at the service station she worked at while she was on duty in January 2023.

Nina Armstrong, 35, from Shepparton, pleaded guilty in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court in September to theft, perjury, aiding or abetting a false report to police, inciting another person to commit an offence, dealing with property suspected to be the proceeds of crime and possessing cocaine.

The prosecutor told the court a woman entered the 7-Eleven service station in Numurkah Rd, Shepparton and handed a note to Armstrong saying she had a gun and to give her cigarettes and money.

Armstrong handed back the note and gave the woman $391 in cash and packets of cigarettes.

She called police after the woman left the store.

Police later found the woman’s phone with messages on it between the pair, and when they searched Armstrong’s house, they found 10 packets of cigarettes in a laptop bag.

Armstrong was sentenced to a 12-month community corrections order, which included 100 hours of community work.

Police chase tractor

Police allege a couple stole a tractor and got into a slow-speed police chase as they drove erratically for about 80km before crashing into an army base in June.

Police said the $150,000 John Deere 6140M tractor — with a Pearce hay feeder trailer attached — was stolen from a machinery shed on a property at Arcadia South.

It was then allegedly driven along the Goulburn Valley Hwy, at times swerving across lanes, almost hitting a bus and hitting the wire barrier.

A slow police pursuit saw speeds of only 40km/h reached.

Police allege the tractor was then driven through the main street of Seymour, almost rolling at one point, before being driven to the Puckapunyal Military Base where it was rammed into the fence twice before the engine stalled.

A man and woman were arrested over the alleged incident, which is still before the court.

Jail for driver in life-altering Orrvale crash

A driver who ran a stop sign and crashed into another car at Orrvale in 2021, leaving the other driver with significant brain injuries and unable to do anything for herself, has been jailed for six months.

Kim Goh, 44, of Point Cook, was sentenced in May after pleading guilty in Melbourne County Court to negligently causing serious injury.

The court heard Goh was driving east on Poplar Ave at Orrvale when he drove through a stop sign in his Rav 4 and crashed into the side of Cherie Mammone’s Hyundai, which was being driven north on Orrvale Rd on May 10, 2021.

Goh braked one-fifth of a second before the intersection, and when he collided with Ms Mammone’s car his vehicle was still travelling at 91km/h.

Ms Mammone, who was aged 22 at the time of the crash, suffered severe brain injuries, including bleeding on and in the brain, as well as a shearing of the brain fibres.

She also received injuries to her heart and pelvis, as well as her face, liver, spleen, clavicle and lumbar spine.

Two years on from the accident, she is in a wheelchair and is unable to shower or feed herself.

As well as the six-month prison term, Goh was ordered to complete a two-year community corrections order on his release from jail.

The order includes 200 hours of community work.