A man has been sentenced over a 2022 assault. Photo: NSW Courts.
CONTENT WARNING: This article refers to sexual assault.
The perpetrator of a violent and humiliating ambush on a man in a Port Kembla unit will be eligible for parole in less than a year.
On 2 September 2022, the victim’s neighbour, Jasmine Agostini, invited him to her unit on Northcliffe Drive to share in methamphetamine.
When the victim arrived he was surprised by the presence of three people and struck in the head with a kettlebell.
He was beaten, his hands bound behind his back and the lubed-up handle of a frying pan pushed into his bottom.
The handle of the frying pan was then held to the victim’s nose before one of the perpetrators, Damian David Kelly, sliced the victim’s ear with a knife and later urinated on him.
The perpetrators left when the owner of the unit returned to find the victim naked, bloody and terrified.
The owner of the unit helped the victim to shower and called 000. Kelly was arrested and charged over his part in the attack the following day.
Judge Andrew Haesler oversaw Kelly’s trial for sexual touching, assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company and detain for advantage.
Judge Haesler said despite the “brutal and degrading” nature of the attack he believed Kelly had good prospects for rehabilitation.
The court heard that Kelly, originally from Ireland, was the victim of sexual assault as a child, and turned to drugs and alcohol when his first marriage began to go downhill.
He spent time in an acute mental health ward and developed drug-induced psychoses before an arrest on drug supply charges and involvement with an outlaw motorcycle gang.
With the support of his parents and sister, Kelly completed an inpatient rehab program and his life appeared to be back on track.
He met a new partner and they celebrated the birth of a daughter in 2020. The court heard Kelly’s daughter has “a number of significant disabilities” which are challenging for her mother to support without a partner.
It was around this time Kelly began to use drugs again and experienced further drug-induced psychoses in 2021.
He was again involved with other drug users and began to commit offences related to his habit, before another admission to a private psychiatric institution to attempt to deal with his psychosis.
After he left hospital, Kelly was arrested for drug-related offences in May 2022 and was on bail when he took part in the Port Kembla assault in September of the same year.
He has remained in jail since his arrest on 3 September 2022.
Judge Haesler said Kelly’s completion of several courses during his time in jail was evidence of his motivation to turn his life around.
He said Kelly’s plea of guilty to the assault must also be taken into account on sentencing, alongside the strong support he has from his family.
His sister, a registered nurse with drug and alcohol treatment experience, told the court the years Kelly has spent in maximum-security remand during his trial have reduced his motivation and trust in others.
“The public has to understand that you are kept in a cell with your other cellmate,” Judge Haesler said.
“That cell is small. That cell contains a toilet. You are fed in that cell three meals a day.
“As a prisoner once told me, ‘you eat where you shit’.”
Judge Haesler said Kelly’s childhood experience of assault, trauma, drug use and mental ill-health all reduced his moral culpability.
He also found the assault with the frying pan “was not sexual but designed to humiliate”.
Kelly received an aggregate sentence of five years and six months imprisonment for all the offences, with a minimum non-parole period of three years and two months.
He previously received a sentence of two years with a non-parole period of one year for the offences he was on bail for at the time he committed the assault. Those sentences dated from 4 September 2022.
His earliest possible release date is 2 May 2026.
Agostini also entered a guilty plea for her part in the attack; she is due to be sentenced on 8 August 2025.
If this story has raised any concerns for you, 1800RESPECT, the national 24-hour sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line, can be contacted on 1800 737 732, or Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call Triple Zero.
