10 of Bundaberg’s biggest cases of 2023-2024
‘Bushdoof’ promoters, drug dealers, abusers or bashers - in the past year, the Bundaberg region has been horrified and heartbroken time and again by the real life dramas of some local men and women. Here are the cases that stood out from the rest.
Police & Courts
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Dozens of men and women filter their way through the Bundaberg court system almost every day, many for minor offences and insignificant offences.
However, in the past 15 months, there have been a number of cases that have shocked, saddened and chilled the community, some that even triggered calls for changes to the judiciary system.
From horrific domestic violence attacks, to heartbreaking accidents with tragic consequences or other shocking activity, readers have witnessed some of the biggest cases in the region.
Here are 10 court cases that have stood out from the rest in the past 15 months.
CONVICTIONS RECORDED
Bundaberg teacher
A former Bundaberg teacher was released from court the same day he pleaded guilty to indecently treating a child after the court heard of the “exceptional circumstances” that led to his conviction.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, pleaded guilty in Bundaberg District Court to indecently treating a child under the age of 16 who was a lineal descendant with the circumstance of aggravation.
The court heard the man was tucking his daughter – who suffered from learning difficulties - into bed when she began asking him about masturbation.
After explaining how to do it, the court heard the man showed the girl, and “using his own hand, rubbed her clitoris”.
“He rubbed her clitorous for about a minute, before the girl told him to stop, which he did,” Mrs Fritz told the court.
“He apologised to her and asked her not to tell anyone otherwise he would lose his job and go to jail.”
The court heard the man had attended the police station and made “full and frank admissions” after the girl’s mother realised something was wrong and discovered what had happened, before telling her husband to attend the police station or she would.
The court heard the child had been subject to a difficult birth and this added stress to the man and his relationship with his then wife.
This stress, the court heard, had contributed to the man drinking heavily on the night of the offending, which led to his “appalling lack of parental judgment”.
The court heard the mother of the child claimed the man had shown no prior predatory nature and was described as a good father.
He was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, immediately suspended with an operational period of two years and convictions were recorded.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Zachariah Lawrence Newman
A Bundaberg warehouse worker was sentenced to 12 months jail after a three-day trial found him guilty of a “cowardly attack” that left another man with a broken jaw.
Zachariah Lawrence Newman, 21, was jailed after being found guilty of grievous bodily harm in Bundaberg District Court in July of 2023.
A Central Hotel bartender, Kenneth Thompson found himself the victim of the attack, following tensions between the pair over a mutual love interest - Kassie Starr.
Ms Starr, 20, appeared as a witness during the trial and commented on the romantic relationship she had previously had with Newman which ended in November, 2021.
The following month, she began a relationship with Mr Thompson, with the pair living together shortly after their relationship began, while she continued a friendship with Newman.
Under questioning from Newman’s barrister, Wes Seewald, Ms Starr told the court the fact she was still in contact with Newman bothered Mr Thompson.
Newman told the jury that he first become aware of Mr Thompson’s relationship with Ms Starr when she contacted him to tell him that Mr Thompson had cheated on her “several times”.
It was revealed Ms Starr and Newman had also slept together while she was in a relationship with Mr Thompson, a fact which she believed “upset” Mr Thompson but did not anger him.
Despite the relationship between Ms Starr and Mr Thompson ending shortly after, within a month the two men were involved in the altercation which landed Newman in jail.
While there were claims of self defence, they were rejected by the jury.
In sentencing, Judge Brad Farr told Newman he had shown “no indication whatsoever” of being remorseful.
“This was a cowardly attack,” Judge Farr said.
Newman was sentenced to 12 months prison suspended for three years.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Jason Kenneth Anthony Scouller
CCTV and witness footage captured the moment a thief pulled out a sawn-off rifle and fired it at a Bundaberg father following an incident at a traffic light.
James Kenneth Anthony Scouller, 29, pleaded guilty and was convicted of unlawful possession of a weapon used to commit an indictable offence, committing a malicious act with intent and unlawful possession of a weapon when he fronted Bundaberg District Court.
The court heard Scouller was riding a stolen motorbike when he rear-ended a white ute stopped at the traffic lights on Takalvan Street, on August 23, 2022.
Crown Prosecutor Erin Hanlon presented two videos, the first was filmed by a bystander and showed a passenger of the ute stepping out of the car to confront Scouller, asking where the registration plates of the bike were as they were not visible.
The video showed Scouller wheel the bike aggressively towards the man, before stopping, removing a shortened 22. rifle and saying “that’s my number plate,” the court heard.
A second video showed the moment Scouller followed the driver into a parking lot before getting off his bike and approaching on foot, pulling his weapon as he did.
While only a few metres away, Scouller lowered his gun, before raising it once more, this time shooting it at the husband who ducked and avoided being shot.
Judge William Everson commented on Scouller’s “sinister” and “heinous” offending which left a young family in fear of their lives.
“It would have been truly terrifying for both him and his family, and also other passers-by,” he said.
Scouller was sentenced to five years jail for the malicious act charge, three years for possessing a weapon used to commit an indictable offence, and 18 months for possessing a weapon, to be served cumulatively.
Eighty-two days of 466 days spent in presentence custody was declared time served. Scouller will be eligible for parole on May 14, 2025. Convictions were recorded.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Christopher Daniel Rose
A former representative rugby union star told his partner he was going to “dig a little hole” after beating her unconscious and driving recklessly to a secluded location while she was trapped in the boot with duct tape and a shovel.
Christopher Daniel Rose pleaded guilty to charges of assault occasioning bodily harm, deprivation of liberty and unlawful use of a motor vehicle for a “terrifying” episode heard in Bundaberg District Court in February of 2024.
The court the offending began when Rose’s former partner ended their relationship in September 2022, after he made threats to her family.
When she went to his home to inform him of the decision, an argument began before Rose got into the passenger’s seat of the victim’s car and asked her to drive him somewhere.
While still in the parked car, the court heard Rose suddenly attacked her by repeatedly punching her in the face before pulling her by the hair towards him and kneeing her in the face so hard she was knocked out for an “extended period of time”.
When she woke she found herself in the boot of the car, curled next to duct tape and a shovel, stripped of her shirt.
Eventually, Rose noticed his victim had regained consciousness and said “you’ve been asleep for a long time sleeping beauty, we’re going to go out and dig a little hole”.
While his victim drifted in and out of consciousness, the court heard Rose drove into secluded bushland arriving some time after 6pm, where he began digging in the ground, telling her he was looking for a gun.
When he couldn’t find the gun, he drove off, with his victim still in the boot before getting bogged and spending 90 minutes digging the car out, during which he “cooled down,” and drove back to Bundaberg to let her go.
Rose was sentenced to six years’ jail, with a parole eligibility date of January 31, 2025.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Jason Andrew Nutt
A Bundaberg man was jailed after pleading guilty over a terrifying ordeal fit for a horror movie script.
Jason Andrew Nutt was convicted of multiple domestic violence offences including strangulation, common assault, assault occasioning bodily harm and three counts of contravening a domestic violence order aggravated offence.
The court heard the 42-year-old had split from his former partner which had resulted in a protection order prohibiting him from seeing her when the pair met on March 24, 2023.
While on a night drive towards his house about 10pm, the court heard Nutt confronted the woman before failing to “take the required turn”.
“During the course of that argument he placed his arm around her throat and applied such pressure that she couldn’t breathe,” Crown Prosecutor Anika Fritz told the court.
“He continued to drive down a dirt road, before he pulled over, she tried to get out of the car and he placed his arm around her throat again.”
After driving further down the road, Nutt parked close to a tree preventing the woman from leaving before she attempted to show him her phone only for him to hit her multiple times on the face with an open hand, before punching her in the face so hard her teeth loosened.
The court heard the woman was able to escape the car through a back window, before fleeing through a surrounding macadamia orchard while calling police, as Nutt chased her in the car and then on foot.
“He gave chase and told her to get in the car or he would kill her,” Ms Fritz said.
Nutt was given a three-and-a-half-year head sentence for the strangulation charge, with concurrent sentences of two years’ imprisonment for assault occasioning bodily harm, 18 months for common assault and 18 months per contravention of domestic violence order.
Time spent in pre-sentence custody between September 24, 2023 and February 28, 2024 was declared time served and he will be released on parole on May 25, 2024.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Sky Samantha McKenzie
A teenage mother avoided jail in October of 2023 following an “explosion” of offending in which she kicked, bit and spat at security officers and police.
Sky Samantha McKenzie pleaded guilty to six charges on Tuesday, October 24, including assault occasioning bodily harm, public nuisance, common assault, failure to leave licensed premises, obstruct police officer and serious assault of a police officer.
The court heard McKenzie was intoxicated at the Central Hotel on the evening of October 19, 2023 when she was asked to leave the premises a little after midnight.
Police prosecutor Vicki Kennedy-Grills told the court McKenzie fought back and kicked at the legs of a security officer who tried to remove her from the club.
When a second security officer stepped in, the court heard she bit him so hard he was left with bruises.
When police tried to arrest McKenzie, she refused and wrapped her legs around a street pole while yelling obscenities at them including “I hope you f---ing die c — t”.
The court heard as officers untangled her from the pole and placed her in the car, the 19-year-old spat at them.
She was sentenced to three months jail, wholly suspended for nine months for serious assault, placed on two years probation for assault occasioning bodily harm, six months probation for common assault, convicted and not further punished for failing to leave the pub and sentenced to 60 hour community service for each charge of public nuisance and obstructing police.
Convictions were recorded.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Giuseppe Michael Catalano
Text messages between a meth dealer and his client haggling over price and making arrangements to meet up were revealed as the dealer was sentenced in a Bundaberg court.
Giuseppe Michael Catalano, 25, pleaded guilty to six counts of supplying a dangerous drug (methylamphetamine) in Bundaberg District Court on Friday, September 26.
The court heard Catalano came to the attention of police through an operation targeting methylamphetamine supply in March 2023, when they downloaded the contents of a mobile phone belonging to his former associate.
In the text messages relating to the actual supply of the drug, Catalano offered the associate an “hb” costing $800 or a “b” costing $1600, using the abbreviation for a half-ball, weighing 1.75g, and 8-ball, weighing 3.5g.
Catalano told the associate the methylamphetamine he was supplying was “the best stuff you’ll get around at the moment its filth”, and arranged to meet him at a high school to supply him with an $800 half-ball of the drug.
Judge John Allen KC told Catalano supplying methylamphetamine carried a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment, due to the drug being “a scourge on our society, causing untold misery and leading to the destruction of lives of addicts and the misery of those close to them”.
Taking into account Catalano’s age, employment, good character references and the fact he was caring for his daughter, Judge Allen sentenced him to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
Duy Khanh Bui and Simon Tran
The inner workings of a “highly sophisticated” Isis drug farm were revealed for the first time when two workers were sentenced in Bundaberg District Court in September, 2023.
Duy Khanh Bui and Simon Tran pleaded guilty to producing a dangerous drug.
The court heard Bui, 30, and Tran, 51, were living in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta in 2022 when they were recruited to work on a farm in Hervey Bay, before being moved along with 12 other co-accused to an Apple Tree Creek property described as “dilapidated”.
After doing some repairs on the house and clearing the remaining land on the property, the 14 men allegedly built 51 greenhouses.
The court heard the greenhouses were around 80m long and equipped with retractable plastic walls, hydration systems and fluorescent lighting powered by industrial generators, with the irrigation systems in the greenhouses supplied by above-ground pools acting as water reservoirs.
After six weeks, 300 cannabis plants arrived which Bui and Tran planted in individual pots.
The original crop of 300 plants was used to propagate a further crop amounting to 43,246 plants with an estimated weight of 14 tonnes that was found by police when they raided the property in October 2022.
The court heard Tran and his co-accused had a low moral culpability for the drug operation, saying Tran did not know the farm was intended to be a cannabis farm until he arrived and had intended to leave the operation after the initial set-up was complete.
The court heard the farm “boss” closely monitored all the workers’ movements, with all the men living in close quarters in a home “infested with rats”.
In sentencing, Judge Tony Moynihan KC took into account the 333 days served by Tran and Bui in pre-sentence custody, and the differing circumstances of both men including age and Tran’s criminal history.
Both men were sentenced to three years’ jail, with Bui receiving a parole release date of October 5, 2023 and Tran a parole release date of December 5, 2023. Convictions were recorded for both men.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
NO CONVICTIONS RECORDED
Renay Paiym Condoleon
In December of 2023, Bundaberg was left aghast at the heartbreaking situation which landed young mother Renay Paiym Condoleon in court, before harrowing court documents revealed an even more shocking side of the story.
The then 33-year-old mother pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention or driving without reasonable consideration for other people using the road, causing death or grievous bodily harm.
The court heard Condoleon had been driving through town on November 13, 2022 when her children in the back seat began misbehaving.
As many parents before her, Condoleon pulled over and asked her son, aged eight, to get out of the car, warning him she might leave him behind if he did not behave.
In a bluff to reinforce the threat, Condoleon began to drive away, unaware her son had reached out to grab the back of the car, stepped on to a damaged side rail and in the tragedy of a moment, slipped and was killed.
Magistrate John McInnes was sympathetic to the unusual circumstances and said “I doubt there would be many children in Australia who haven’t been at least threatened they would be kicked out to walk home while driving in the car at some stage”.
Despite the tragedy of the situation, court documents revealed a shocking twist to the case.
It was revealed the eight-year-old child did not die at the scene, and in fact Condoleon had placed him in the boot of her car before driving to her home where she waited for police to arrive.
“A short time later, uniformed officers arrived at the defendant’s residence and saw that the injured child was lying in the rear boot area of the defendant’s Audi Q7 station wagon,” the court document revealed.
“He was bleeding from head injuries.”
Following her plea of guilty in the Bundaberg courts, Condoleon was sentenced to 15 months probation, with her licence disqualified for six months and no convictions recorded.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORTS HERE AND HERE.
Six hoons face court
Social media influencers with 12,000 followers were among six people sentenced for promoting hooning activity under new state laws in December 2023.
The charges arose following a beach party that left a teenager with critical injuries being flown to hospital, with documents revealing the event had been promoted on social media with one person saying “bring beers, be a menace”.
Police were aware that Kinkuna beach was frequently used as a location for hooning due its relatively remote location, and complaints were regularly received from people living nearby regarding excessive noise, music and fireworks.
Joel Justin McKinlay pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence related to his promotion of the “bushdoof” through his Instagram account. He was fined $800, with no convictions recorded.
Zara Tyne Mander, 21, pleaded guilty to unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence for posting a compilation of videos to her social media account showing vehicles hooning with the tag “if it ain’t like this don’t invite me”.
Mander was fined $350 with no convictions recorded.
Tayne Jessica Richardson, 21, pleaded guilty to unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence for posting a compilation of videos to her TikTok account on July 3 showed numerous vehicles performing dangerous skids at Kinkuna.
Richardson was placed on a $500 good behaviour bond for 12 months, with no convictions recorded.
Alijah James Mason pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence.
The court heard the “bushdoof” videos showed people hanging out of the passenger window of a 4WD, and Mason’s own vehicle doing burnouts on the beach during the day.
Mason was fined $900 with no convictions recorded.
Caleb Seth Lawrence, 18, pleaded guilty to unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence for posting a video of a small vehicle performing a burnout in reverse on Kinkuna Beach and was fined $400 with no convictions recorded.
Joel Hardy Brack, 18, pleaded guilty to unlawful promotion for racing, burn out, or other hooning offence for posting a compilation of videos on July 4 depicting hooning activity at the “bushdoof” and was fined $500 with no convictions recorded.
READ THE FULL COURT REPORT HERE.
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