Retrial for jailed bouncer
Judge’s self-defence misdirection ruled on appeal
A SURFERS Paradise security guard found guilty of bashing a man, breaking his jaw and knocking out teeth has had his conviction quashed and a retrial ordered.
Former soldier Dennis Hecta Tipene Faulkner was in June found guilty by a Southport District Court jury of causing grievous bodily harm to Sydney tourist Dominic Beinke at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in February 2014.
He was sentenced to two- and-a-half years’ jail and expected to serve 12 months behind bars before the rest of the sentence was suspended for three years.
But Faulkner, who in June fainted in the dock after his sentence was handed down, may be out of jail as soon as this week after the Queensland Court of Appeal found the jury was misdirected by the judge about self-defence.
His legal team will make a bail application in coming days.
During the trial, the court heard Mr Beinke wanted to ensure his drunken brother Patrick got to bed safely when he dropped him at the hotel after a party on the night of the incident.
Security camera footage played during the trial showed the pair were approached by Faulkner at the foyer of the hotel and an altercation ensued between the group when the pair were not allowed up to the room.
Faulkner then walked Mr Beinke out of the hotel.
After a scuffle between the pair, he punches the man knocking him unconscious. The fact Faulkner inflicted the blow was not in dispute.
Court documents show lawyers for Faulkner appealed the decision on the basis there was a “miscarriage of justice” when Southport Judge David Kent QC answered the jury’s question about self-defence.
They argued Faulkner was denied “procedural fairness” after Judge Kent told the jury it was a “difficult logical proposition” to find the blow to Mr Beinke was a reasonable response to what happened in the foyer of the hotel.
“... (There) has to be an immediate connection for it to be self-defence, it seems, as a matter of logic,” he said.
The Court of Appeal earlier this month found this was a misdirection and a new trial has been ordered.