Joel Erwin and Luke Deering: Youtube pranksters plead guilty
They are used to the adulation of their thousands of loyal followers, but the smiles were wiped off the faces of these two ‘internet stars’ as they faced assault charges in court.
Central Sydney
Don't miss out on the headlines from Central Sydney. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Two brothers who trade on embarrassing strangers in public have officially gone too far, pleading guilty to a string of assaults that they first defended as “harmless” pranks.
Joel Erwin and Luke Deering – known online as Erwin – broadcast the incidents to tens of thousands of their devoted followers, which left a man with a damaged ear and a woman fearing she would be robbed, telling police officers some victims “find it funny”.
Joel, 27, and Luke, 25, have pleaded guilty to charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company and common assault relating to three incidents in October this year.
“It was all harmless pranks,” the younger brother told police in an interview last month. “If people got hurt then we’ll take down the videos.”
Police facts state the pair earn about $1000 each a week posting their zany pranks on random people to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram without their victims’ permission.
It can be revealed that one prank on October 16 left a 36-year-old man with “persistent ringing” in his left ear, later diagnosed as tinnitus, when Luke held an air horn about 30cm away from the man’s head.
The George St incident, filmed by part-time professional scooter rider Joel, was then uploaded to Luke’s Instagram account – which has more than 317,000 followers.
“Looking at it now, I can see the air horn could hurt people but we didn’t intentionally try to hurt someone’s ear,” Luke told police on October 22, agreed facts state.
In the second incident on October 21, the duo walked into Harbourside Shopping Centre in Darling Harbour with a green feather duster and a “Cleaning in Progress” sign.
They found a 53-year-old woman sitting on a chair outside the Ugg store and while Joel filmed, Luke held the sign in front of her and used the feather duster to begin “rubbing the victim’s left arm and shoulder several times”, agreed facts state.
“You are dusty, you are dusty,” he said. “I need to dust you.”
The victim told him to “go away and leave me alone”, the facts state, prompting the 25-year-old to rub her head several times with the duster as she tried to push him away.
“The victim felt intimidated by the assault and was unsure whether the accused and his brother intended to steal her bag or hurt her in some way,” police facts state.
In his police interview, Luke called the stunt “unique” and “weird”.
“We were just cleaning her,” he said.
The next day the older Erwin brother – also known as Wezma – was walking along Bathurst St when he spotted a potential victim of a fake sneezing prank.
He crept up alongside a 35-year-old woman and “made a sound similar to that of a sneeze” while using a can of hairspray to shower the victim’s face, neck and chest.
“The victim turned to the accused and told him ‘This is disgusting’ as she believed that he had just spat on her,” the facts state.
The brothers began laughing and Luke, who was filming, said: “You should see how this looks and you should see the expression of your face”.
When asked to delete the footage he said, “Relax I am a big internet and Youtube star”.
Joel defended the prank to police last month, saying some of their victims “find it funny” depending on “what humour they have”.
“If you want to be technical, I sprayed next to me and she walked into it. She could have stopped or gone a different direction, I just sprayed to my right,” he said.
The younger of the Campbelltown-based brothers also pleaded guilty to destroying a 12 pack of eggs while filming another stunt at a Woolworths store at Ingleburn Town Centre on October 11.
According to agreed facts Luke hurled the eggs into the air one by one allowing them to smash on the ground while Joel filmed. The duo then strolled out of the store without paying.
He has also pleaded guilty to another incident on November 8, 2019, when he entered a mattress store in Ashfield Mall wearing sunglasses and a cane and proceeded to walk over beds and fall between gaps while pretending to be blind, as Joel filmed “from behind a pot plant”.
The prank caused $3300 in damages to the store, which needs to replace several mattresses, according to the police facts.
The duo will be sentenced on December 13.