Peter Thomas Stewart: Almost year-long jail sentence indicated for man who shoved woman on Melbourne train tracks

A man who shoved a complete stranger off a train platform during peak hour has been warned he faces almost a year behind bars. Peter Thomas Stewart, 54, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday after pleading guilty to charges including assault and intentionally causing injury during a hearing late last year. The matter was listed for sentence, however his lawyer informed the court he had yet to be given a police brief for an unrelated case and requested it be pushed back a month. Stewart was taken into custody after pushing a 64-year-old woman off the platform at Richmond Railway Station about 3.50pm on July 3 last year. He fled the scene but was arrested the following day, while the woman was pulled off the tracks and taken to hospital with injuries. Magistrate Rosalyn Porter adjourned the case until February, announcing she had formed the intention to sentence Stewart to 330 days in custody followed by either a deferral to the Assessment and Referral Court (ARC) or a community-based order. ARC is a specialist court which provides treatment and support for individuals with mental illness or impairments to address the underlying cause of their offending. In November, Stewart’s lawyer Callan Boyle requested he be referred to ARC, saying the structure it provides it the “best way of helping him”. He told the court that while it was very serious and Stewart had extensive priors for similar offending, it would offer him a chance to address mental health and drug addiction issues. “He and the community would be best served by having the support that ARC provides,” he said. “Rather than further days, weeks or months of imprisonment and being released into the community without those supports at the end.” Stewart, who has spent six months in custody, will return to court on February 5.