Cheyenne Ashley Tairi: Albany man receives suspended prison sentence for waving axe at his neighbours

An Albany man who brandished an axe at his neighbours after drinking an “extraordinary amount” of alcohol and making threats to kill a litter of puppies has avoided an immediate jail sentence. Cheyenne Ashley Tairi, 35, appeared in Albany Magistrates Court on January 12 for sentencing on five convictions from November. Tairi was convicted of two charges of criminal damage or destruction of property, and one charge each of endangering the life, health, or safety of a person, being armed or pretending to be armed in a way that may cause fear and making a threat to unlawfully do an act. Police prosecutor Sgt Mike Russell told the court the incident took place at Tairi’s home in Bayonet Head about 4pm on October 16. Throughout the day, Tairi had been yelling from his house that he was going to kill a litter of puppies he had on his property by various methods including drowning them in a river. Several neighbours had gone to Tairi’s house to check on his welfare and he chased them away while waving an axe. Tairi began hitting his next-door neighbour’s fence with the axe, before going onto the neighbour’s property and yelling that he would burn the house down. He then tried to siphon fuel into a jerrycan from a nearby vehicle, before abandoning it and returning to the front yard armed with the axe. He hit the neighbour’s mailbox and front door while yelling at him to come outside, before approaching his car and using the axe to smash a window. The neighbour, who had never met Tairi before, came outside and told him to leave his property and said he had called the police. Tairi then swung the axe at the neighbour in a “baseball-style” swing, missing him by about 20cm, and swung at him three more times. The neighbour ran back to his house where he got a broom to defend himself. Tairi fell to the ground as he again swung the axe at the neighbour, who struck Tairi with the broom handle while he was on the ground and managed to take the axe off him. Tairi was restrained by members of the public until police arrived. Tairi’s defence lawyer told the court he had “little to no memory” of the incident, which happened after he consumed an “extraordinary amount of alcohol in a single intake.” The lawyer said his neighbours, who had been “shaken up” by the incident, usually regarded Tairi as “innocuous”. She said Tairi “wanted to own his behaviours” and had offered “reparation and compensation” to his neighbours. Magistrate Dianne Scaddan said it was “completely understandable” that Tairi’s neighbours, who otherwise “had no problems with you at all,” had become distressed after hearing him yelling threats to kill the puppies. Ms Scaddan said the neighbour who Tairi swung the axe at was “very lucky” to have avoided being injured. She sentenced Tairi to 10 months in prison, suspended for 12 months.