Nathan Whan: Mullumbimby man fined over refusing to move from Apex Park

A man who was reported to police for drunkenly harassing women during Schoolies has been reprimanded by a Byron Bay magistrate.

A Mullumbimby man who was reported to police for drunkenly harassing women during Schoolies has been reprimanded by a Byron Bay magistrate.

Nathan Whan, 36, faced sentence in Byron Bay Local Court on Monday for one count of refusing to comply with police move-on directions and possessing cannabis.

The court heard Whan was partying in Mullumbimby when he decided to go to Byron Bay at the height of 2021 schoolies celebrations on December 4.

According to his solicitor Annabel Wurth, Byron Bay was “overrun” with Schoolies that night and a highly intoxicated Whan was unable to get an Uber home from Apex Park.

Police responded to a report that Whan was behaving inappropriately towards females when they approached him lying on a park bench about 12.35am, court documents state.

Noting Whan was unsteady on his feet, slurring and argumentative, the officers issued a move-on direction which Whan then refused.

An argumentative Whan became combative with police and was then arrested and placed into a police van, court documents state.

Police later found 1.35g of cannabis on the man.

Ms Wurth said Whan, a former Yamba resident, had been trying to turn his life around after serious offending, including an assault occasioning actual bodily harm conviction.

Magistrate Karen Stafford said Whan’s behaviour was “quarrelsome” towards occupied police as she acknowledged his “terrible” criminal record.

“Police obviously had enough to deal with, with young people and growing Covid cases... to then have to worry about someone old enough to know better,” she told Whan.

She convicted Whan on both counts and fined him $1000 for refusing to comply with police and $300 for the cannabis possession.