Former Home and Away star admits brutal attack on woman
A former Home and Away star has admitted to bashing a woman during a suspected mental health crisis.
Orpheus Pledger, 31, faced Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday via a video link from custody at Ravenhall Correctional Centre.
Police prosecutor Fionnuala Kennedy said Pledger attacked the victim repeatedly over a three-month period at a home in Northcote, Melbourne, with one of the attacks captured on a motion-capture camera on March 25.
Footage from the camera showed Pledger grabbing the woman's hair, pulling her to the ground and stomping on her head.
The court was told that the woman called triple zero at 1.35am to raise concerns Pledger was suffering a “mental health episode", before the line disconnected right after she said “he’s coming.”
Officers arrived 15 minutes later and found the woman lying on the floor of her home unable to get up, with Pledger nowhere to be seen.
The woman was taken to hospital, where doctors noted that she had bruising on her forehead, a laceration to her cheek, bruising to her right hand and marks on her face and ear.
The court was told that he was arrested the following day, but he was unable to be interviewed because of his "erratic behaviour".
He was released in April for a court-ordered medical assessment due to concerns for his mental health, but he fled from the hospital on April 23 after a six hour wait.
He then returned to the woman's home to collect his things and when asked to leave, he told her: “why, I haven’t done anything”.
Police issued a public appeal before he was arrested two days later.
Defence lawyer Jasper MacCuspie noted that during that time, his client was unable to get the mental health assessment he required, due to limited resources, saying that it was a widespread issue within the health system.
The court heard that there is currently a shortage of ambulance and police resources, which Magistrate Justin Foster labelled as “outrageous”.
““The only reason I bailed him at the time was because there was nothing available for him to be … assessed in a prison setting. And there is no money in the hospital to have these important things assessed,” he said.
“There’s a shortage of everything at the moment, it’s outrageous.”
MacCuspie also said that his client had begun acting at the age of eight or nine but fell into the wrong crowd, and his drug use escalated in his late 20s when he was declined a role on US TV series The 100.
“At the very last minute that fell through. It was a destabilising event,” MacCuspie said.
“He aspires towards acting in future, but accepts by virtue of matter that’s a somewhat challenging prospect,” he added.
Pledger will be assessed for a community corrections order, but has pleaded guilty to four assault-related charges, and will be sentenced on Wednesday.
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