Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin

Alleged bikie fights ‘absurd’ shopping centre charge

- GREG STOLZ

AN alleged Mongols bikie who was banned from Gold Coast shopping centres after a wild brawl is fighting a conviction for going to a retail complex he argued was a market.

Tyrone Poole, 31, was convicted last month of breaching bail orders not to go near shopping centres between Loganholme and Coolangatt­a.

The condition was slapped on him after he was charged with affray over a brawl between Mongols and Finks bikies at Southport’s Australia Fair shopping centre last June.

He was later charged with breaching bail after being busted buying flowers, eating and drinking at the Brickworks centre at Southport in September.

Poole pleaded not guilty at a hearing last month, telling Southport Magistrate­s Court he thought the Brickworks was a market because it didn’t have a Coles or Woolworths.

“There was a big sign saying marketplac­e,” Poole told the court, adding he would not have gone there if he thought it was a shopping centre.

The police prosecutor said the Brickworks was “a series of shops all in one place” with large retail stores and eateries.

Magistrate Dzenita Balic said CCTV footage showed the Brickworks was “a clear conglomera­tion of shops” and Poole would have seen that on the path he took to the centre.

She found Poole guilty, convicting him because of his lengthy criminal history but not further punishing him.

His lawyer, Michael Gatenby, told the court the prosecutio­n was “absurd in the extreme” and could have been avoided with “prosecutor­ial discretion”.

Poole has lodged an appeal against the conviction in the District Court. The grounds have not yet been outlined.

He was found guilty of the Australia Fair affray, along with two counts of possessing steroids and testostero­ne, last November and was fined $1500. A conviction was recorded.

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