Straddie fishing trip from hell as drunken sea dog menaces trio

A family day of fishing off Straddie morphed into the trip from hell as a drunken sea dog turned violent as he ran over a dingy narrowly missing the trio on-board.

It was a family fishing day off North Stradbroke Island that went horribly wrong.

A family day of fun fishing off Straddie morphed into the trip from hell as a drunken sea dog turned violent, menacing a father and two teens with “risk of death” as he ran over their dingy narrowly missing the trio with a propeller going full speed.

But as Shane Leon Turnbull’s own vessel sank his unrelenting pursuit continued forcing a teenager to belt him with an oar as he tried to pull one of them overboard, Brisbane’s District Court heard.

The victim father, his 17-year-old son and the boy’s 16-year-old girlfriend were out fishing in their dinghy in March 2023 when Turnbull motored over their moored lines in his tinnie.

The trio remonstrated at Turnbull who responded with abuse and aggressively drove around their dinghy causing a glancing blow between the two vessels and entangling their fishing lines in his outboard motor.

Turnbull, now 49, took off to a larger boat and the victims followed to record the registration and report him but a further verbal altercation ensued.

“At that stage, you hitched up the leg of your shorts and exposed your genitals to them,” Judge Brad Farr said at sentencing this month.

The victims then left, heading back towards the boat ramp at Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island.

Turnbull got into his more powerful dual runabout and “proceeded to aggressively pursue these people … at speed”.

As he closed in Turnbull slammed his fist into his hand while pointing at them and then rammed the rear of their dinghy “causing it to lift and turn uncontrollably”.

The family were fishing off North Stradbroke when the altercation occurred.

“This was inherently dangerous activity … if someone is injured and rendered unconscious and falls they don’t fall into dry land, they fall into water. So the risk of death was ever present,” Judge Farr said.

The court heard the teenage girl tried to shame Turnbull into stopping his rampage.

“I’m 16, I’m 16. You’re going to kill me,” she yelled.

The victims’ screams were heard by passing ferry passengers who recorded the chaos.

As the victims tried to flee, Turnbull pursued, forcing them to take evasive action.

At one stage the boy picked up a speargun but this only made Turnbull more angry he told a psychologist.

As he positioned his boat at the rear of the dinghy causing the vessels to connect the boy fired the speargun but missed.

At high speed Turnbull then rammed the dingy causing it to turn uncontrollably.

“You then drove your vessel over their dinghy completely over the top of it,” Judge Farr said.

“How you did not cause serious injury to at least two of the occupants of that vessel is a mystery.”

Turnbull’s boat rolled with the bow striking the father – who suffered a fractured collarbone – and the son, who experienced a contusion to his head and sprains and strains to his forearms.

“The outboard motor and propeller of your vessel came out of the water at full speed, narrowly missed each of those three people,” Judge Farr said.

It was estimated that Turnbull was travelling at least 40km/h.

Turnbull abandoned his sinking vessel and swam towards the victims’ boat in an effort to get aboard.

As he grabbed one of their wrists and tried to pull them in, the teenage boy “understandably” whacked him about the head with an oar.

The victims made it to land and called police but Turnbull wasn’t done, the court heard.

He was picked up by a jetskier who took him to the victims.

A heavily bleeding Turnbull threatened to kill them and had to be restrained by police.

Using a countback method police determined Turnbull would have had an alcohol reading of 0.147 at the time of the incident.

He pleaded guilty to dangerous operation of a vehicle while adversely affected by alcohol and indecent act. Two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm were dropped.

Crown prosecutor Zachary Kaplan said Turnbull used his boat “as a weapon”.

“It’s simply the fact that they could have died had the boat struck their heads,” he said.

Barrister Dane Marley said the behaviour of his client, who had no prior matters of violence on his record, was out of character.

“The gross over-reaction … is really an aberration for him,” he said.

Judge Farr accepted this as well as Turnbull’s remorse but placed little weight on a provisional diagnosis of PTSD.

Turnbull was jailed for three years with a parole release date of July 2026.

Originally published as Straddie fishing trip from hell as drunken sea dog menaces trio