An asylum seeker who pleaded guilty to damaging a Darwin detention centre dining hall and assaulting another detainee has escaped with two good behaviour bonds.
NT Magistrates Court heard on Tuesday the man, who cannot be identified, was "clearly on edge" in November last year when he discovered Serco staff had left a personal letter he wrote to authorities on a table in the hall where other detainees read it.
Enraged, the man overturned several tables, threw one at a wall, at a window, and smashed a window with a chair at the Wickham Point centre.
The court heard the man had fled Iran fearing for his life with his wife and infant son in July 2013.
He suffered from depression, anxiety, chronic back pain, and other medical conditions and was having marital troubles, all of which contributed to the incident, the court heard.
"Coming to Australia has clearly not been what you expected it to me," Magistrate Tanya Fong Lim told the man.
She said the frustrations of detainees held indefinitely could be understood, although damaging property was unacceptable.
But in his case, Ms Fong Lim said the negligence of authorities leaving his personal documents for others to read was not acceptable.
"You are entitled to your privacy ... The authorities ought to have been more careful," she said.
The matter was discharged without a conviction, with a 12-month good behaviour bond.
The man also pleaded guilty to assaulting another detainee the day before his outburst in the dining hall in November.
"Everybody in detention is under pressure and is in an unnatural situation," Ms Fong Lim said.
She said a message had to be sent to detainees that peace had to be maintained within detention centres, and so she recorded a conviction for the assault along with a 12-month good behaviour bond.
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