ACT Supreme Court sentences Shane Houghton to suspended jail term

A Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang member has learned his fate after drunkenly assaulting an old mate. 

Members of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang on their annual ride in 2012.

A judge has left the door open for a Canberra bikie to make amends with the old friend he injured in a drunken assault, even if the victim does not want to hear “soppy apologies”.

Shane Christopher Houghton, 31, escaped time behind bars earlier this month, when the ACT Supreme Court sentenced him to a suspended jail term of 11 months and 19 days.

The Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang member had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of recklessly inflicting actual bodily harm.

He entered the plea the day before his trial, following negotiations that resulted in the prosecution withdrawing a more serious charge.

In sentencing remarks published on Tuesday, Justice Verity McWilliam said Houghton and the victim had been friends for many years before the incident.

On the night in question, in December 2021, the two men were part of a group that “consumed a significant amount of alcohol and illicit substances” in Woden.

Some of the group eventually went to the victim’s unit in Greenway, in Canberra’s south.

The ACT courts, where Shane Houghton was sentenced.

Justice McWilliam said an argument ultimately broke out as the group continued “a celebration of sorts”.

Houghton and the victim went outside, where the disagreement turned physical.

“The offender has then struck the victim to the upper body area, causing him to fall to the ground,” Justice McWilliam said.

“In the course of hitting the ground, [the victim] suffered an injury to his left arm that started bleeding immediately.”

The victim ended up spending three days in hospital, where he was found to have suffered “a full-thickness incised wound” that required surgery and left a small scar.

Justice McWilliam said the depth of the wound was “indicative of significant force”.

Houghton agreed to take part in a restorative justice process with the victim, prompting Justice McWilliam to refer the case to the relevant agency.

“Even if the victim does not want to hear soppy apologies from an old friend, the victim may be prepared to allow his friend to at least communicate his regret formally and in a private setting, for what was on any view a very serious injury, however the injury came to pass,” she said.

Justice McWilliam ultimately imposed an 18-month good behaviour order as part of the suspended sentence.

In an unrelated case, the court has previously heard Houghton was among the group of Canberra Comanchero bikies involved in a deadly brawl at Kokomo’s nightclub in 2020.

The bikies clashed with a larger group that included Frederick Elijah Mercy Tuifua, who murdered the gang’s Canberra commander, Pitasoni Ulavalu, by stabbing him in the neck.

Tuifua, 29, is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for the murder and other offences.

Houghton was never charged in relation to the nightclub brawl.