Kalum Gulliver-Brown: Lota rugby league player found guilty of assault

A young Brisbane rugby league player has been sentenced in court for a ‘gratuitous’ assault at a nightclub which hospitalised his victim.

A young Brisbane ex-private schoolboy “coward punched” a man on a date with his female friend at a popular nightclub before savagely bashing him with no provocation, a court has heard.

Lota man Kalum Jai Gulliver-Brown, 21, pleaded guilty in Wynnum Magistrates Court on Thursday to a single charge of assault occasioning bodily harm in a public place while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance.

The court heard the assault occurred at Fridays nightclub in Brisbane CBD in the early hours of November 22 last year.

The victim was on a date with a friend of Gulliver-Brown and was known socially to the defendant and had entered the nightclub about midnight, the same time as Gulliver-Brown and his friends.

Over the next two-and-a-half hours, Gulliver-Brown and his victim had a number of “interactions” which progressively got more aggressive, due to the defendant’s belief his friend did not want to be on the date with the victim.

Lota man Kalum Jai Gulliver-Brown, 21. Picture: Alex Treacy

About 2.30am in the beer garden, the victim felt a “sudden impact to the right side of his face and instant pain to his right eye”, police prosecutor Snr Const Andy Ross told the court.

The victim “lost control of his body and fell over,” at which point Gulliver-Brown administered two more blows to his face, leaving him semiconscious.

Snr Const Ross described the assault as “gratuitous”.

The victim attended the Princess Alexandra Hospital later that day.

Gulliver-Brown was charged on January 24 this year after attending Wynnum Police for a record of interview, where he admitted his intoxication on the night in question and his hazy recollection of events.

The court heard Gulliver-Brown graduated from a well-known private school in 2016 and had recently secured work at the Port of Brisbane after completing a four-year carpentry apprenticeship.

He is also a gifted rugby league player, it was submitted on his behalf, having previously played for Souths Logan and Wynnum-Manly and currently playing for Normanby Hounds in the Brisbane Rugby League competition, where he sits on the board and is very involved in day-to-day club life.

Magistrate Zachary Sarra described Gulliver-Brown’s actions as a “gutless coward punch” over a “belle of the ball”.

Mr Sarra told Gulliver-Brown, being a footballer, “you have to be an A-grader on the field as well as off the field”.

Gulliver-Brown told Mr Sarra he had a “brain snap”.

He was ordered to perform 40 hours’ community service and pay the victim $600 compensation.

He was also placed on a $3000 two-year good behaviour bond.

No conviction was recorded.