Zac Gray: ’Gentle’ dad punched Logan Hospital doctor’s head in unprovoked attack

A father who punched a senior doctor in the head at Logan Hospital in a “disgraceful” unprovoked attack is normally a “quite gentle” person, a court has heard.

A Logan father who punched a senior doctor in the head at Logan Hospital in a “disgraceful” unprovoked attack is normally a “quite gentle” person, a court has heard.

Zac Hanare Gray, 24, of Loganholme, pleaded guilty in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on Monday to serious assault of a person over 60, possess utensils or pipes that had been used and possess property suspected of having been used in connection with the commission of a drug offence.

Zac Hanare Gray outside Beenleigh courthouse.

The court heard Gray got into a lift with a senior doctor at Logan Hospital’s emergency department in Meadowbrook and punched him in the face and he fell down in an unprovoked attack on May 25.

The doctor, who was over 60, was left bleeding and had to be treated for a cut to his cheek and two cuts inside his mouth.

Magistrate Terry Duroux described the offending as “nothing short of gratuitous violence.”

“It’s disgraceful,” he said.

Gray’s lawyer told the court his client suffered from stress and anxiety, which had been amplified by not being able to see his children and his grandmother being in hospital.

“He’d already gone off the rails at that point from not being able to see his children predominantly because unfortunately, his mother was quite busy at the time dealing with her ailing mother and her husband who had medical appointments and the like,” he said.

“Such that she wasn’t able to facilitate contact with his children … so he resorted to cannabis and Xanax.

“He’s behaved in a way that’s, in my submission, completely out of character for him.

“He’s an individual who’s quite gentle in his usual disposition and described by his family as someone for whom aggression is out of the norm.”

He was sentenced to a two-year period of probation and ordered to pay $800 in compensation. No conviction was recorded.