Summer Bowden sentenced for assaulting security guards, resisting police

A fitness instructor has learnt her fate for a frenzied attack on multiple security guards – leaving one with a bleeding lip – and resisting arrest after an incident in the women’s toilets at a Coffs Harbour pub.

The Coffs Hotel

An altercation in the female bathroom at a Coffs Harbour hotel sparked a frenzied attack from a young woman on several security guards and police officers who came to arrest her.

Summer Bowden was sentenced in Coffs Harbour Local Court recently for seven charges stemming from the incident at the Coffs Hotel in April last year.

The 22-year-old was charged with three counts of common assault in relation to three separate security guards and one charge of assault causing actual bodily harm in relation to a fourth security guard.

She was further charged with resisting police officers, and being an excluded person who failed to leave a premises when required.

She had previously pleaded not guilty to all charges, except the resisting officers, but entered guilty pleas to all charges leading up to her sentence on April 6.

Got involved with ‘wrong people’ says mum

Bowden has since moved from Coffs Harbour to Queensland to live with her brother and pursue a career in the health and fitness industry.

Summer Bowden. Picture: Facebook

In a reference tendered to court, her mother said Bowden was a kind-hearted person with “good morals and ethics who is always willing to help others but unfortunately became involved with the wrong people while living in Coffs Harbour”.

When living in Coffs Harbour she had worked with children with disabilities and according to another reference, from her friend and then-housemate Hayley Kelly-Tipler, has a “heart of gold”.

Kelly-Tipler was with Bowden on the night and also faced charges in relation to the incident.

She pleaded guilty to resisting or hindering police and was placed on a 12-month conditional release order without conviction at Coffs Harbour Local Court in June 2022.

Launched out of chair and punched security guard

On the night in question Bowden had been drinking with friends at the Coffs Hotel on the corner of West High St and the Pacific Highway.

According to police facts tendered to court, she had consumed an “unknown amount of drinks” before security were informed there had been an altercation between Bowden and an unknown person in the female toilets around 10.45pm.

When the security guard asked her to leave, she “immediately began hurling abuse”.

Bowden was initially verbally aggressive, then “immediately launched out of her chair and punched the security guard with a closed fist on the left side of his face”.

Outside, she punched another security guard in the face and was told to move down the street.

As the struggle continued she punched a third security guard in the face and kicked him in the inner thigh, then launched at a fourth security guard – punching him twice in the face and kicking him in the leg.

The Plantation Hotel on the Pacific Highway a few doors away from The Coffs Hotel

Friends took her away and they sat on the steps in front of The Plantation Hotel.

When officers arrived, one of the guards had a bleeding lip and redness and swelling and Bowden appeared “dishevelled and smelt of intoxicating liquor”.

She immediately became hostile towards police, yelling “don’t touch me” and grabbing a pole as they attempted to get her to stand.

Her friend Kelly-Tipler started filming the tussle up close on police faces and name badges, saying it would be posted on social media and at one point claiming “I work for the government”.

Hayley Kelly-Tipler continued to hinder police, recording up close to their faces and name badges, even as their tussle to make arrests later spilt onto the Pacific Highway after a night out at The Coffs Hotel in April.

According to documents tendered to court in Kelly-Tipler’s case, officers then became involved in a violent scuffle with another man who had been hindering them, forcing them onto the Pacific Hwy.

Kelly-Tipler continued to record, standing on the road swearing at police and continually threatening to post the footage on social media.

Officers told her to get back to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic but, according to police facts she said: “I don’t really care to be honest”.

According to the facts, when Kelly-Tipler was placed in the back of a caged police vehicle she continued to resist saying: “Do not f--king touch me, you do not have a right to touch me”.

Slid onto the ground screaming

When officers attempted to handcuff Bowden she stiffened her body and attempted to kick out at them and “slid on the ground screaming”.

Police facts state that even after she was handcuffed she kept lashing out with her feet and kicked a constable in the groin before being lifted into the caged vehicle.

Due to her level of intoxication she was given a time out at the police station before being interviewed.

She spent one night behind bars remanded in custody before being granted bail the next day.

Bowden was convicted of all charges and sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order starting on April 6.