A man who shot a homemade gun at a car with the driver inside has avoided further time behind bars, with a judge finding it is not always in the community's interest to "lock someone up".
Mariusz Ergland Nurzynski, 60, has pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm and endangering life, and unauthorised manufacture of firearms.
In the ACT Supreme Court this week, Justice Verity McWilliam handed Nurzynski a prison sentence, to be suspended upon him entering into a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order for 18 months.
Nurzynski had already spent more than nine months in custody while on remand since his arrest last year.
"It is not always in the community's protective interest to 'lock someone up'," Justice McWilliam said in a decision published on Friday.
The judge detailed Nurzynski's history of drug and alcohol addiction, starting when he was introduced to marijuana at 14 before moving onto heroin.
Justice McWilliam said the 60-year-old acknowledged carrying out justice himself, instead of seeking police assistance, was wrong.
"He has also expressed regret and shame for his actions, including for being a 'burden on the system' and for hurting a member of the community," she stated.
"He reported a desire to be a good influence in the lives of his grandchildren."
However, the judge found Nurzynski "still has a way to go in terms of insight".
Agreed facts state in August 2023, in Phillip, the victim noticed a man, who was wearing a face covering, standing behind him.
The victim chased the man up a nearby alleyway, before seeing the barrel of a homemade firearm pointing at his head, and retreating to his car.
The victim then drove his Mitsubishi Triton towards the disguised figure and heard a loud "boof", which he believed to be a gunshot.
Police later found an "elongated cylindrical hole" near the passenger's side door handle.
The next day the masked man, identified as Nurzynski, told officers he tested the homemade firearm at drains near Woden Cemetery.
He said he knew how to make the gun "on account of the general principles of physical inertia" and had constructed it out of "materials he'd picked up over the years".
Giving evidence in March, Nurzynski claimed the victim had stolen his $10,000 electric bicycle, purchased with money he received when his mother died.
"I wanted to scare this guy one more time, [I thought], 'Maybe he'll give back my bike'," Nurzynski told the court.
He claimed he went to police four times to report the stolen bike, but "they laughed at me".
Nurzynski also stated the victim had tried to hit him with his vehicle.
This week, Justice McWilliam said "given [Nurzynski's] current attitude and willingness to finally kick what has been a life-long illness and struggle ... I am firmly of the view that a targeted intervention program ... is the best protection".
