Former Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger jailed for threatening victim

Former Home and Away star Orpheus Pledger is behind bars after threatening to kill a woman he had previously attacked, with a judge sentencing the fallen actor to up to a year in jail.

The 32-year-old was jailed for breaching a community corrections order imposed last November following a violent and unprovoked attack where he dragged a woman to the ground by her hair and stomped on her head.

Judge Michael Tinney described the behaviour as “serious criminal offending on a completely helpless victim” when sentencing Pledger to the original community corrections order.

After serving 97 days in pre-sentence detention, Pledger was released on a two-year court order. However, the judge today declared the order had been a complete failure.

“The order has been a failure ... Your client has kept using drugs. He knows he has,” Tinney told the defence.

Defence barrister Scott Thomas acknowledged his client’s methamphetamine abuse and admitted Pledger had breached court orders by returning to the victim’s house after telling his mental health workers he was going to kill her.

The judge rejected pleas for leniency, telling the court: “I have a disturbing chronology of offending and a disturbing chronology of non-compliance.”

Tinney said he was left with no choice but to jail Pledger, cancelling his community corrections order and sentencing him to a year behind bars with a non-parole period of six months.

Any decision on his early release will now lie with the parole board.