Legal circus takes toll
GRACE MASON THE lawyer for a former Cairns bikie boss said his client had faced a “psychological toll” from an assault charge against him that was dropped after three years.
Joshua Graeme Hutchins, 33, alleged to have been a sergeant-at-arms for the Rebels, was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm in company during 2014 and an association offence that would have involved a mandatory 25year jail sentence under the former LNP government’s anti-bikie laws.
The charges related to the assault of a man at Bentley Park and involved two alleged co-offenders Mark Brenton Blomely, 30, and Arthur Chamberlain Juckes, 30.
The association charges against all three men were dropped earlier this year when the bikie laws were changed by the Labor government, before the assault offence was also dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions earlier this month.
Solicitor Scott Osborne, who represented Mr Hutchins, said his client had always “protested his innocence” but had been on “onerous” bail conditions for three years while the matter proceeded through court.
“He is extremely relieved that the ordeal is now finally over,” he said.
“The three years has taken a significant toll on him psychologically.”
The case was hamstrung many times in the court system, including debate and an appeal over whether it should be heard in the Supreme or District Court jurisdiction due to the sentence length.
The dropping of the charges followed negligible sentences handed out to two other Cairns men earlier this year who were also charged under the VLAD laws.
Mark Filtness and Peter Johnson, both 51, received six month good behaviour bonds almost four years after their arrest outside the former Odin’s Warriors clubhouse on Spence St in October 2013.
The pair were the first two people in the state to be charged under the laws.