Ryan Gordon Gelhaar pleads guilty to assaulting neighbours at Brayden Roy memorial

A neighbour to a family hosting a burnout-fuelled memorial to dead motorcyclist Brayden Roy went into a fit of rage and knocked out one mourner. VIDEO

A neighbour whose “blood was boiling” at the sound of extended burnouts being done as a tribute to Brayden Roy three days after his death knocked out one of Brayden’s friends, asking him “how do you like the taste of blood?”.

Ryan Gordon Gelhaar, 42, pleaded guilty in Bundaberg Magistrates Court on Friday to two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of common assault.

On the day of the offending, April 23, 2023, three days after Brayden Roy was killed in a motorcycle accident, Gelhaar’s neighbours were hosting a memorial to Brayden attended by the Roy family and his friends.

The neighbours, who “treated Brayden as their own”, owned a nine-acre property on which they had constructed a small concrete skid pad about 60 metres from the boundary with Gelhaar’s property.

After all those gathered at the memorial spent some time talking about Brayden’s passing, some members of the group did some “tribute skids” on the skid pad, including two brothers who lived on the property and were good friends with Brayden.

Gelhaar's neighbours were holding the memorial for Brayden Roy, who was killed in a motorcycle accident.

The brothers arranged their vehicles so that they were facing back to back on the skid pad then started a series of tribute skids which lasted around two minutes at a time or until any of the tyres on the vehicles burst, which happened on two or three occasions, following which the tyres were changed and the skids continued.

Gelhaar’s defence lawyer, Lavonda Maloy, told the court that the two brothers had done burnouts three of four times a week for a number of years, regularly sending a “black plume of smoke and soot and dust” throughout the neighbourhood including Gelhaar’s property, contaminating his tank water and staining his roof black from the tyre particles which descended.

The court heard Gelhaar came home late in the afternoon on the day of the memorial and became incensed at again hearing the sound of burnouts from his neighbour’s property, later telling police “his blood was boiling, his head was hurting, and the surroundings started to fade”.

Accompanied by another neighbour who had armed himself with a steel bar, Gelhaar entered his neighbour’s property and confronted one of the brothers who had been doing burnouts.

The court heard Gelhaar “without warning” punched him in the side of his face and pushed him backwards, causing him to hit the ground with a noise that could be heard throughout the gathering, knocking him unconscious.

The victim’s mother then jumped onto Gelhaar’s back and put her hand around his neck, yelling and screaming at him to stop and saying “this is a tribute”, and the victim’s father also tried to restrain Gelhaar who then started “throwing punches”, two of which hit the victim’s father on either side of his face.

Described by the victim’s mother as “in a fit of rage” and having “pupils in a pinpoint” such that “nothing was going to stop him”, Gelhaar then said words to the effect of “I’m sick of dealing with this crap”, “I’m going to kill you all I’m sick of this s--t” and “who has tasted blood now?”.

Brayden Roy was killed in a crash while riding his motorcycle on October 21, three days before Gelhaara’s offending.

As the victim’s mother, who had a deformed hand due to a congenital disability, pushed Gelhaar closer to the fence line along with her husband, Gelhaar puncher her in the throat, grabbed her hand and squeezed it behind her back, inflicting severe pain which caused her to go into “hysterics”.

When Gelhaar started to go back to his own property the victim’s mother yelled “we are only doing this because Brayden was killed in a motorcycle accident”, in response to which Gelhaar shook his head and said “I don’t give a f--k”, also asking the victim, who had since regained consciousness, “how do you like the taste of blood?’.

Ms Maloy told the court her client was married with three children, had stable employment as a fitter and turner and had bought the Branyan property around three years prior to the offending as a “forever home” for himself and his wife.

The court heard Gelhaar was diagnosed with depression in 2018, and lost his right middle finger in a workplace accident three months ago.

In sentencing, Magistrate John McInnes told Gelhaar that it was “unfortunate” that the participants’ memory of the memorial “will be spoiled by what happened”, and from their perspective they were “set upon … by a madman”, however he saw some mitigation in the public nuisance caused by the burnouts over a long period of time.

Gelhaar was sentenced to 15 months probation and 100 hours of community service, and ordered to pay $1000 in compensation to the victim and $500 to his mother.