Tradie Blake Dean Nightingall, 20, sentenced for fake Grindr hook-up that ended in ‘vigilante’ bashing

A young tradie ‘decided he was judge, jury and executioner,’ when creating a fake ‘honeytrap’ Grindr profile to lure a man to a secret rendezvous before ambushing and bashing the victim.

Blake Dean Nightingall, 20, pleaded guilty to five charges in the Cairns Magistrates Court on July 25, including assault occasioning bodily harm in company, stealing, contravening an order in relation to an electronic device and drug possession. Picture: Peter Carruthers

A young tradie ‘decided he was judge, jury and executioner,’ when creating a fake ‘honeytrap’ Grindr profile to lure a man to a secret rendezvous before ambushing and bashing the victim.

Blake Dean Nightingall, a 20-year-old apprentice tiler, pleaded guilty in Cairns Magistrates Court to assault occasioning bodily harm in company and stealing over his role in the “vigilante” attack on October 22 last year. The court heard Nightingall told arresting police that he had wanted to “teach the man a lesson”.

“There’s another side to it – it’s not like the other fella is fully innocent – the messages and sh*t – that gay dating app Grindr, there’s fellas on there all keen to meet up with 14-year-old boys, it just happened, it was a silly idea,” he later told the police officers.

Police prosecutor Tara Nona told the court one of the three attackers was carrying a baseball bat when they approached the victim.

The man suffered cuts and bruises and was hit in the face several times with fists, choked from behind, thrown to the ground twice, dragged a short distance and ordered to hand over his bank details and phone, she said.

Blake Dean Nightingall leves the Cairns Magistrates Court with his mother and solicitor Jacqueline O’Reilly. Picture: Peter Carruthers

The court was told Nightingall worked up a fake Grindr profile using photos of himself as a 15-year-old before chatting with a man online for a while, then organising a meet-up at the Smithfield library. Nightingall claimed the man had sent “penis pictures” during the exchange.

When investigating police asked Nightingall why he didn’t take the allegations to the police instead, he said “it made more sense to get funny story out of it”, Ms Nona said.

“The defendant stated he was sorry for him (the victim), but he needed to learn his lesson.”

Ms Nona said one of the other men, Max Fryer, had been sentenced to 10 months imprisonment, with immediate parole, and the third alleged offender had not yet been dealt with by the courts.

Nightingall. who was in possession of cannabis and ground THC to “make edibles” when he was arrested, told police he did not hit the victim but had recorded some of the assault on his phone.

Defence solicitor Jacqueline O’Reilly said Nightingall was young, had no criminal history, and was “otherwise of good character from a good family”.

“He accepts that his behaviour was unacceptable … the offending displays a lack of maturity and gung-ho attitude that is quite typical of young men of this age bracket – there was no thought of how the meeting would play out and the consequences of their actions to the victims or themselves,” Ms O’Reilly told the court.

She said he had pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and conceded his actions were “stupid”.

Magistrate Adam Johnson sentenced Nightingall to 10 months imprisonment with an immediate parole release date.

He condemned the attack and questioned Nightingall’s story.

“The circumstances were appalling, … you saw yourself with the other offenders as judge, jury and executioner,” Magistrate Johnson said.

“You’re not a sworn constable – you don’t have the power to investigate offences – you were acting like a vigilante law enforcer when you embarked on this exercise of trying to lure someone in – you’ve represented yourself as a minor and classed the victim of something of a pedophile.

“The whole construct is … uncorroborated, bare allegations of things said, but he never actually stumped up the evidence to support his claims, we have an unsubstantiated story being proffered with no support as to the matters he said happened.”

Magistrate Johnson also fined Nightingall $450 for each of the two drug offences and ordered him to pay $599 compensation within two weeks.

Originally published as Tradie Blake Dean Nightingall, 20, sentenced for fake Grindr hook-up that ended in ‘vigilante’ bashing