Matthew Steicke: Suspended imprisonment for man defending home in Kendenup January shooting

A man who fired a Tikka T3X bolt action rifle in Kendenup while defending his home from trespassers who had stolen his children’s Christmas presents has earned a suspended term of imprisonment. Matthew Peter Steicke, 38, appeared in Albany Magistrates Court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to one charge of discharging a firearm to cause fear and one charge of discharging a firearm across a road. Police prosecutor Sgt Warrick Walker told the court on January 7 Steicke and his family returned home from a holiday to discover their home had been burgled and Christmas presents meant for his children were gone. The windows of Steicke’s vehicle were also damaged and glass littered the ground. Steicke was told by people in the community that the perpetrator was his former friend and co-worker with whom he’d had a falling out over the payment for a motorcycle. Steicke put the smashed glass in a bucket and dumped it outside the man’s house the next day on January 8. Steicke then went home and took a Tikka T3X bolt action rifle out of his firearm cabinet. Between 7.50am and 8.10am, a white vehicle pulled up outside his house and three people with rocks in their hands got out, including his former friend. Steicke fired one round in the direction of the ground and three rounds in the direction of the white vehicle, which was hit in three places. Steicke’s defence lawyer Graeme Payne said his client had received abusive and threatening texts in the lead-up to the incident from a person using the same first name as Steicke’s former friend. Mr Payne said Steicke decided to use the firearm to “scare them off” and felt he was being tormented. Magistrate Erin O’Donnell acknowledged that Steicke had been harassed and was feeling “emotional” when he fired the gun, but he was lucky no one was injured. “They were behaving in a very nasty and antisocial way but there is no excuse for using a firearm in that situation,” she said. Steicke was sentenced to eight months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and was disqualified from holding a firearms licence for 12 months.