Luke Maloney: Patonga Boathouse bucks brawler jailed for choking cop
A man who choked a cop from behind until his “eyes bulged”, when a wild drunken buck’s party erupted into a brawl outside the Patonga Boathouse Hotel, has finally been sentenced 17 months after the incident.
Central Coast
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A member of a buck’s party who carried out a “cowardly attack” on two police officers has been sentenced for his role in the drunken melee.
Luke Robert Maloney, 36, of Umina Beach, was sentenced to a total of 16 months jail, with a non-parole period of eight months, for intentionally choking a police officer in the execution of their duty, assaulting an officer occasioning actual bodily harm and using violence to cause fear.
He was also convicted of failing to quit a licensed premises but received for further penalty for that offence.
The court heard Maloney had been with a group of men celebrating a buck’s party at Newport on Sydney’s northern beaches when they caught ferries over to Patonga.
The members of the first group to arrive were refused entry because they were intoxicated and alternative transport was arranged for the men, dressed in Hawaiian shirts, to leave.
But the court heard that when the buck Joshua Bovis, his dad Michael Bovis, Maloney and others arrived and were refused entry Joshua Bovis slapped a security guard behind the head and they refused to leave the area.
The court heard two police arrived and spoke to the hotel manager and the security guard before going to speak to Joshua Bovis.
Magistrate Peter Barnett said the situation quickly turned violent with the officers set upon.
“This was a cowardly attack by a group of males on two police who were outnumbered,” he said.
Mr Barnett said Maloney was seen on body worn camera vision to move in an “arc” around one officer who was “fearful of someone coming behind him and he was right”.
The magistrate said Maloney grabbed the officer with his arm across his neck and forced him to the ground and choked him.
At Maloney’s hearing last year the officer told the court he thought he was about to lose consciousness while the hotel’s security guard said the officer’s eyes were bulging, tongue hanging out and he looked like he couldn’t breathe”.
More police arrived, Bovis’ and two others were arrested but Maloney had left the area.
Mr Barnett said the words “no Luke stop” could be heard on the officer’s body worn camera which came off during the attack.
Maloney was found guilty of the offences after a two-day hearing and the matter was adjourned for a sentencing report.
It was adjourned again at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in April.
Maloney’s solicitor told the court he had been sober since the incident in February last year and that he was still going to Alcoholics Anonymous.
The court heard he had since had his fourth child with his partner, who was present in court, and was a valued site manager for a plumbing company.
However Mr Barnett said Maloney had other convictions on his criminal record, which included stints in jail for assaults including assaulting police and resisting arrest in Queensland.
He said no other penalty than full time jail would be appropriate.
The court heard Michael Bovis got a 12-month intensive corrections order, $400 fine and 200 hours of community work for his involvement which included assault occassioning actual bodily harm in breaking the security guard’s jaw, while his son Joshua got six months jail — reduced from nine months on appeal — for assaulting police.
Another co-accused Cullen Richardson, 18, was given a community corrections order for 12 months and fined $100 for causing fear and failing to quit.