Jailed for assaulting former football mate in hotel toilet

A FIGHT after one man urinated on another in the bathroom of a Lowood hotel has led to a man being jailed.

A FIGHT after one man urinated on another in the bathroom of a Lowood hotel has led to a man being jailed.

On the night of January 25 last year, Brendan Blanch, 21, was drinking at the Lowood Tavern. He had been drinking there, and at another pub in the town, for several hours.

Late in the night he walked into the toilet of the hotel and stood next to another man. Blanch began urinating on the man's leg, causing the man to shove Blanch away.

They began to fight inside the room with Blanch and another repeatedly punching the man, even after he had fallen to the floor.

Blanch pleaded guilty in the Ipswich District Court on Friday to assault occasioning bodily harm in company.

The victim suffered bruising to his eyes, cuts to his head, and redness of his eyeballs.

While the cuts were small there was a lot of blood in the bathroom from the fight.

After the fight, the court heard, Blanch found a security guard and told him there had been a fight.

The court heard the fight was opportunistic and Blanch hadn't gone into the bathroom intending to start a fight.

He and the victim were previously on good terms having played football together.

The court heard in the last week they had sat down together and Blanch had apologised for his actions.

Defence lawyer Geoff Seaholme said since the incident Blanch had cut back on his drinking.

Judge Greg Koppenol said Blanch was lucky he didn't inflict worse injuries on the man and described his actions leading up to the fight as "a disgusting act".

"(This was) a cowardly attack on an innocent young man," he said.

"A day hardly goes by without reading in the media stories of acts of gratuitous violence in hotels and parts of south-east Queensland."

Blanch was sentenced to nine months prison and is to be released on parole in two months.

Originally published as Jailed for assaulting former football mate in hotel toilet