John Gregory van de Vorstenbosch to serve jail time

The manager of a well-known fish and chip in a regional SA town has been jailed after pleading guilty to trying to persuade his wife to drop charges against him.

A former Murray Bridge council worker and manager of a popular fish and chip shop in Mannum will spend almost a year behind bars after trying to attempting to dissuade a witness.

John Gregory van de Vorstenbosch, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to dissuade or prevent a witness from attending at judicial proceedings in the Adelaide District Court.

The court heard van de Vorstenbosch had made several attempts to persuade his brother-in-law to have his aggravated assault charge dropped, saying “this is all bulls**t, I’ve done nothing wrong and it needs to go away”.

John Gregory van de Vorstenbosch, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to dissuade or prevent a witness from attending at judicial proceedings.

The court heard on April 30, 2021, van de Vorstenbosch’s wife disclosed to police allegations of abuse committed against her by her husband, who was arrested for the aggravated assault.

The single charge was dealt with by the Magistrates Court on July 26, 2022, in the way of an 18-month good behaviour bond.

After van de Vorstenbosch was granted bail on May 1, 2021, he began asking his brother-in-law to speak to his sister to clear his name.

“At 8.53am, you sent a text message asking him whether he had texted her yet,” Judge Geraldine Davison said.

“At 9.01am you sent a further two messages, to the effect of asking your brother-in-law to call your wife and tell her to release the charge and you would leave them alone.”

“Your brother-in-law knew this would be a breach of your bail agreement, so he did not reply.”

Just after 10am van de Vorstenbosch’s wife and brother-in-law were said to of had a general phone call before the line cut out; after 10 minutes van de Vorstenbosch’s wife called her brother back.

“She said during that call, he asked her if there was any chance of her dropping or not going through with the charges,” Judge Davison said.

“Your brother-in-law agreed that he did call the wife, but at no point in the conversation did he ask her to drop the charges.”

At 5.20pm, van de Vorstenbosch sent a further message to his brother-in-law saying: “I want you to call her and make it all go away”.

Six minutes later van de Vorstenbosch sent another message, asking the brother-in-law to communicate to her, among other things: “This needs to stop, and if you did love him you wouldn’t do this”.

The court heard van de Vorstenbosch ran a popular fish and chip shop in Mannum with his wife at the time of the offending and he had previously worked for the Murray Bridge council.

van de Vorstenbosch was arrested in relation to the attempting to dissuade or prevent a witness from attending at judicial proceedingson offence on May 10, 2021.

Sarah Grimwade, defence counsel for van de Vorstenbosch, made submissions that her clients relationship was experiencing significant difficulties.

The relationship had all but broken down and it was in this context that the aggravated assault occurred in September 2020.

“I accept that you deeply regret your offending and are embarrassed and ashamed of it,” Judge Davison said.

“The nine days you spent in custody were a salutary lesson for you and have had a significant impact upon you.”

van de Vorstenbosch was sentenced to one year and one day, with a non-parole period of four months and 21 days.