Details on Israel Buggy’s stabbing of Danny Hawkins

When five men brutally attacked a Qld boxer in his front yard a shocked community was left wondering why. Now, for the first time, we reveal the conversation that triggered the ambush as revealed in the courts.

Scenes from the shocking attack on Danny Hawkins (inset) at his Gympie home on the afternoon of September 18, 2021, captured on camera by a witness. Gympie Magistrates Court was told the image showed Ben Colin Buggy (left) and Israel Colin Buggy (right) during the attack.

In late 2021, the partners of two long-time friends – Israel Colin Buggy and Danny Hawkins – ran into each other at a Gympie shopping centre and one asked the other if she was pregnant.

In a turn of events labelled “extraordinary” by one judge, the courts have heard that “innocuous” comment was the trigger to a violent, bloody ambush by five men, including Mr Buggy and his two sons, on Mr Hawkins.

The attack tarnished the reputations of four popular, rising rugby league stars, left Mr Hawkins with life-changing injuries, scarred his terrified family and rocked the entire community.

Mr Buggy will spend the next three to four years in jail.

In the 21 months that followed the ambush, it emerged through multiple court hearings that the pregnancy question made its way back to Mr Buggy, then aged 45, who took offence.

Scenes from the shocking attack on Danny Hawkins at his Gympie home on the afternoon of September 18, 2021, captured on camera by a witness. Pictured from left are Ben Colin Buggy, Callum Robert McClay, and Bronson Israel Buggy (shirtless, brandishing a machete).

He responded by first calling Mr Hawkins – who he had known for years – on September 18, 2021, and asking if it was an insult, and then sending texts calling Mr Hawkins a “weak c--t”, “a coward”, and a “dead dog”.

The courts heard Mr Hawkins first agreed to a fight the next day, but then told the then-45-year-old to “sleep it off”.

Mr Buggy did not.

Instead, he encouraged a group of young men he had been drinking with at the Gympie races to join him in a visit to Mr Hawkins.

The Gympie boxer and father was in the front yard of his Parsons Road house building a child’s cubby house when the group arrived in a white 4WD, about 30 minutes after their last text exchange.

Gympie boxer Danny Hawkins was stabbed multiple times in the attack, and suffered a cut to his scalp. The courts were told he would died from blood loss as a result of his wounds if he was not flown immediately to Brisbane for surgery and treatment.

The five – Israel, his sons Ben Colin Buggy, 19, and Bronson Israel Buggy, 24, and their friends Alec Campbell Jardine, 19, and Callum Robert McClay, 22, who all knew each other through football – sprang from the vehicle and confronted Mr Hawkins as his family watched on.

Israel Buggy was armed with a concealed 15cm kitchen knife.

Bronson Buggy was brandishing a knife and a machete, and McClay was wearing knuckle dusters.

Ben Buggy and Jardine were unarmed.

The courts were told the weapons had all been inside the car when the group set out.

Gympie Magistrates Court was told the image showed Ben Colin Buggy (left) and Israel Colin Buggy (right) during the attack, with the victim Danny Hawkins‘ knee visible in the bottom left of the screen. The court heard he had been stabbed by this point in the events.

‘I’LL CUT YOUR F-----G HEAD OFF’

A scuffle immediately broke out, with Bronson standing by the gate screaming “I’ll cut your f-----g head off” as his father threw punches at Mr Hawkins’s head.

Bronson and Ben soon joined the punch-up, which came to a violent end when Israel Buggy stabbed Mr Hawkins multiple times in the chest and cut his scalp.

The group fled the scene.

A neighbour who witnessed the aftermath said Mr Hawkins was left laying on a concrete path with “blood p-----g out everywhere”.

The fight and stabbing were all filmed on a mobile phone by one of Mr Hawkins’ children.

With life threatening injuries, Mr Hawkins was airlifted to Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. The Gympie District Court was told in February 2023 he would have died from blood loss without immediate transport.

His five attackers were arrested later that night.

An image presented to the courts of the knife wielded by Israel Colin Buggy during the attack on boxer Danny Hawkins. Buggy was sentenced to seven years jail after pleading guilty to one count of acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm.

Jardine was the only one of the five to be granted bail in the immediate aftermath.

Ben and Bronson Buggy were remanded in custody for several months, only getting released on bail more than six months later after their charges were downgraded to grievous bodily harm.

Following their release they started living with their grandparents in the Bundaberg region.

The brothers and McClay were the first to be sentenced for the attack.

Appearing in Gympie District Court in February 2023, they each pleaded guilty to one count of grievous bodily harm.

The court heard the trio were unaware of Israel’s knife, but Judge Glenn Cash pointed out “it doesn’t take much to realise it was an appalling and bad idea”.

Ben and Bronson Buggy were sentenced to two-and-a-half-years jail, suspended for three years after six months.

They had served the first part of that sentence in pre-sentence custody.

The courts heard the group of attackers arrived at Danny Hawkins Gympie home on the afternoon of September 18, 2021, in a white 4WD. They fled in the same vehicle shortly after the attack.

McClay, who pleaded guilty to 16 other drug-related charges, including 11 counts of supply, was sentenced to three years jail, suspended after six months for a four-year period.

He was put on probation for two years.

One month later Jardine, the second youngest of the five, was sentenced and became the only member of the group to avoid significant time behind bars.

He pleaded guilty to a count of grievous bodily harm.

His punishment was mitigated by several choices he made at the time.

These included being the only one of the five not to actually engage in the violence, the only one to never enter Mr Hawkins’ yard, the only one to leave the scene and return to the car when the violence escalated, and being unarmed.

Scenes from the shocking attack on Danny Hawkins at his Gympie home on the afternoon of September 18, 2021, captured on camera by a witness. Bronson Israel Buggy (left) was carrying a machete during the incident, Gympie Magistrates Court was told on September 20, 2021.

Jardine was also the only member of the group to give police a record of interview and help with the investigation.

It was during this sentencing that Judge Gary Long said he was stunned by the entire turn of events which were started by “fairly innocuous” comments about Israel’s wife.*

“This whole event … is an extraordinary one,” Mr Long said.

Jardine was handed an 18 month jail term, wholly suspended for two years.

The matter finally resolved for good on July 10, 2023, when Israel Buggy was given a seven-year jail term for the stabbing.

His sentencing did not go off without a final confrontation between supporters of Israel Buggy and Mr Hawkins, who was in the public gallery at Maroochydore District Court.

Mr Buggy pleaded guilty to one count of acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm and, as he was convicted of a serious violent offence, he was ordered to serve 80 per cent of that term.

After he was sentenced and escorted from court, shouting erupted between the two parties as they filed out of the courthouse.

This then escalated to the threat of physical violence, before court security was forced to step in and physically hold some people back.