A fight over a pair of shoes has left one man with a fractured skull and led to a Canberra man being sentenced to six years' jail.
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Rian Stephen Minnis, 29, fractured a man's skull and left a woman with heavy bruising after he clubbed them with a baseball bat during a home invasion last year.
Minnis originally denied the incident, but was found guilty during an ACT Supreme Court trial last month of assault, entering a property without consent and threatening to cause harm.
The court heard Minnis and the victim had fought about a pair of shoes on December 11.
About 4am the next day, Minnis and an unknown man stormed the victim's Bonython home armed with bats.
The family were asleep in front of the television in the living room at the time and awoke to yelling.
Minnis used the bat to hit the woman on the leg and then repeatedly beat the man in the head.
The offenders fled after the victim, who was bleeding heavily, managed to break free and escape to the back of the house.
The man suffered a fractured skull and 10 centimetre cut to his head, while the woman's leg and wrist were swollen and bruised.
Minnis was arrested later that day and has been in custody since.
The court heard Minnis was well-known to both victims as a neighbour and frequent visitor to the home.
The injured woman reported she had known Minnis for almost a decade and had been close friends for much of that time.
A victim impact statement said the woman had felt guilt over Minnis' jailing as she knew his family.
She and the man both reported emotional damage after the offences, including anxiety, difficulty sleeping and nightmares.
The court heard Minnis had a relatively minor criminal history, with no offences of violence other than an assault in 2003.
He owed about $10,000, which included about $3000 in traffic fines.
Chief Justice Helen Murrell said the home invasion had been aggravated by the fact Minnis had a co-offender, a child had been present, the offence involved weapons, and the offender had been on a two-year good-behaviour order at the time.
Chief Justice Murrell sentenced Minnis to six years in jail, with two years and three months to be spent behind bars in full-time custody.
The judge ordered he then serve 15 months of weekend detention until September 2017.
The remaining two and a-half years was suspended upon Minnis signing another good behaviour order.
The judge backdated the sentence to March this year, as Minnis had served a three-month sentence for an unrelated offence.
