MELBOURNE: An Australian accused of assaulting an Indian taxi driver in a Victorian city was today swiftly sentenced to three months in jail, hours after he verbally and physically abused the cabbie under a spell of alcohol. ( Watch Video )

Paul John Brogden, 48, from Ballarat in Western Victoria, who was arrested after he abused and assaulted the Indian early this morning, was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to threatening to kill the victim.

The taxi driver Satheesh Thatipamula, 24, was abused and assaulted and his vehicle damaged by Brogden, who believed the driver had taken him the wrong way.

"When you drop me off I will kill you, you mother f**king Indian, I will kill you, you f**king Indian bastard," he allegedly told the Indian. The driver, however, did not receive any major injuries.

Brogden's lawyer, Philip Lynch, said he had consumed so much alcohol he could not remember the events of the night."I actually don't know how he was standing up," Lynch said.

In sentencing the man to an immediate three-month jail term, Magistrate Michelle Hodgson said she must consider "general deterrence".

"Regardless of race, violence toward people in vulnerable positions, performing valuable services to the community, valuable jobs like driving taxis or working in 7/11s, violence toward these people will not be tolerated," he said.

The incident came amid a string of attacks on Indians in Australia, mostly in Melbourne, with 21-year-old student Nitin Garg, who was stabbed to death by unidentified assailants here, becoming the first victim of such assaults this year.

Another Indian youth, Ranjodh Singh, was killed in New South Wales last month.

Nearly 100 cases of attacks on Indians were reported in Australia in 2009 as against 17 incidents of assaults in 2008.

A partially-built gurdwara was also damaged in a blaze on Wednesday, and the police is probing the possibility of arsonists using Molotov cocktails in the incident.

Even as the incidents have strained relations between India and Australia, Canberra has maintained that not all cases of attacks on Indians have been racially-motivated.

