HE was there to exact revenge by causing “maximum damage”; flattening cars, squashing a boat and then turning his bulldozer blade toward the family home.
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But when Jamie Sager embarked on the climax of his bulldozing rampage on June 8, 2015, driving into, over and through the home at Teralba, he was also intending to endanger lives.
That’s the conclusion a Newcastle District Court jury came to on Tuesday afternoon, finding Sager guilty of the most serious charge relating to his determined plan to get back at the family he once called his friends.
After the guilty verdict was read out, Sager shook his head and glanced around the courtroom.
“You lying dogs,” he grumbled, before a Corrective Services NSW officer told him to be quiet.
The 50-year-old had pleaded not guilty to destroying property with intent to endanger life, with the sole issue at the week-long trial focused on what Sager was thinking at the time he embarked on the climax of his rampage and what his intention was at the time he put the bulldozer through the house.
In the early hours of June 8, 2015, Sager stole a 49-tonne bulldozer from a nearby mine site, drove it through bush tracks, waited until sunrise and then headed for the home on The Weir Road.
He then destroyed four cars – completely flattening two – and a boat before turning his attention on the house.
Sager had said he waited until sunrise and tooted his horn so that the occupants would have enough warning to leave before he commenced destroying their house.
“That’s why I hit the cars first because I knew when I hit the cars they’ll come out of the house,” Sager told police during his interview.
“Even though I hate what they’ve done and despise them, I still wouldn’t hurt them. “I wanted to hurt their premises. “I chose to make them lose everything because of what they made me lose.”
But the jury deliberated for about two hours before disagreeing, accepting Crown prosecutor Brian Costello’s version that Sager knew the family was still inside the house when he began demolishing it.
Mr Costello had said during his closing address that Sager had waited for them to flee, but “in an angry and agitated state” became impatient and drove straight through the wall of the house.
The verdict brings to a close a more than two-year judicial saga for the victims, which included an aborted trial in July last year.
Sager will be sentenced in October and is facing a maximum of 15 years in jail.