Apiarist Jake Farquhar facing prospect of prison after being found guilty of bashing a former friend

A successful apiarist bashed a former friend, shattering both of his eye sockets, over a call to Crime Stoppers – now the Victor Harbor local is facing the prospect of prison.

The trial of Jake Farquhar was a tale of two different people.

On the one side is a successful beekeeper and young father who was buying his own trucks in his mid-20s and remains well thought of by people in his Victor Harbor community.

The other is of a vengeful man who shattered a former friend’s eye sockets during an ambush attack over allegations of drug trafficking.

Farquhar, from Hayborough, was charged with intentionally causing harm to the victim after a vicious assault on August 23, 2020.

Opening the trial earlier this year, a prosecutor told the jury the 27-year-old had punched the victim up to 15 times to the face, leaving him barely able to see and stumbling down the street looking for help.

However, Andrew Moffa, for Farquhar put a different story to the victim – saying he had fallen over while fleeing Farquhar and was blaming the results of a fall on his client.

The victim admitted making a phone call to Crime Stoppers about Farquhar on April 8, 2020 – accusing the beekeeper of selling cannabis.

In turn, the jury heard allegations Farquhar had accused the victim of stealing beehives for his own use.

Somehow the Crime Stoppers report got back to Farquhar who in June 2020 sent the victim a photo of his dog with caption “every dog makes its bed”.

On the day of the assault, Farquhar went looking for his former friend.

Jake Farquhar was found guilty of bashing a former friend over a call to Crime Stoppers.

Farquhar first stopped at the victim’s house and finding that he wasn’t home, went to his place of work – a cafe in Encounter Bay.

Farquhar and his partner told the victim they wanted to take him for a drive to sort out the issues.

The victim told them to leave so he could go back to work, but was so spooked he called a friend and then the police to tell them Farquhar had come to his work.

The police said there was not much they could do but offered to follow the victim home to make sure he was safe.

Unknown to the victim, Farquhar had gone to the house of a mutual friend, Hugh Ladd, and was encouraging him to invite the victim over.

Sure enough, after the victim finished work, Mr Ladd called him and said to come over for cigarette.

The victim went home, changed his clothes and drove to Mr Ladd’s house where he pulled into the driveway.

The jury heard that as the victim got out the car Farquhar emerged from the bushes.

Social media photo of Jake Farquhar’s successful bee box business.

The victim screamed at Mr Ladd that he had been set up and told Farquhar there would be other ways of sorting out their problems.

Farquhar struck the victim more than a dozen times to the head, breaking both his eye sockets.

“It seemed to go on forever and I just couldn’t get him off me,” he told the jury.

“I just remember seeing (Farquhar’s) eyes, just looking at me just like he wanted to kill me”.

The victim, his eyes closing over with swelling, stumbled down the street away from Farquhar and hammered on the door of a nearby house.

There was no reply, so Farquhar hit the one of the last numbers on his phone and called the same friend he had told about the confrontation at the cafe.

The friend picked the victim up and took him to Victor Harbor Hospital. He was then taken to Adelaide for emergency treatment to prevent his eyes sinking back into his skull.

Social media photo of Jake Farquhar’s successful bee box business.

Mr Moffa cross-examined the victim, asking him whether he had been jealous of Farquhar’s success, whether he had asked someone else to punch him to make the injuries worse and whether he was trying to sabotage Farquhar’s business by making the Crime Stoppers complaint.

The victim denied all allegations put against him and the jury reached a majority verdict that Farquhar had assaulted him.

During sentencing submissions last week, Mr Moffa tendered numerous letters of reference on behalf of his client and called evidence attesting to his good character.

Farquhar will be sentenced in January.