Financier Jim Byrnes pleads not guilty to crash, blames diabetic episode and mystery driver
Flamboyant financier Jim Byrnes has blamed a mysterious driver for a Bondi multi-car crash that left him facing criminal charges.
Flamboyant financier “Big” Jim Byrnes has a big long list of reasons why he is not guilty of charges that saw him locked in a paddy wagon, after the sports car he was travelling in smashed into three parked cars.
In an interview outside Newtown Local Court, the former adviser to billionaire Alan Bond told The Daily Telegraph he intends to argue he was in the midst of a diabetic episode when the blue Chevrolet crashed on Rickard Ave Bondi on November.
Further, the 66-year-old said he will argue he wasn’t even driving the classic car when it crashed into a Mazda, a scooter and a Volkswagen (which was pushed into a fourth car) after leaving Bondi’s Cafe Bikini, a bar and restaurant on Hall St about 6pm.
Instead, Byrnes said it was being driven by someone else.
So who is this person?
“I can’t tell you for security reasons,” Mr Byrnes said. “He’s shot through.”
Byrnes spoke on Wednesday just after he entered pleas of not guilty to a charge of failing to submit to a breath test and assaulting a witness who allegedly tried to stop him.
With his hair slicked back and held in place by designer sunglasses, Byrnes still looks every bit the financial mover and shaker who moved with Sydney’s elite.
In more recent times, he has found drama via his professional life and blamed gangsters for shooting at his Bellevue Hill mansion in 2012.
Asked if the extensive damage to the front of blue Chevy had been repaired, Byrnes said he doesn’t even own the car.
“It belongs to a business partner of mine,” Mr Byrnes said.
Who is that?
“I don’t want to name him,” he said.
Has he repaid the owners of the damaged vehicles?
“It went on their insurance, but we’ll deal with it,” Byrnes said. “I have empathy for all of them.”
“The big question is ‘Who was driving?’,” he said. “We will be representing to police that they need to get CCTV from Bikini Bar and other footage to show who was actually driving the car and who caused the accident.”
Byrnes will also contest charges he assaulted a 54-year-old man at the scene.
Byrnes was also critical of the police who locked him up.
“The right thing to do if someone was in a diabetic state would be to call an ambulance,” he said.
The businessman said he is a Type 2 Diabetic and that his blood-sugar level -- which is around 5mmol/L for people without the condition -- was extremely high.
“At the time of the incident I was probably 26,” he said. “You become disorientated.”
In court, Magistrate Michael Barko ordered police to serve the brief of evidence on Mr Byrnes’s lawyer Greg Goold by early next year.
Mr Barko amended the businessman’s bail conditions to say that he cannot be drunk in public.
This came after Mr Byrnes argued that his previous bail conditions, which banned him going into licenced premises, left him unable to eat many meals.
“Every cafe and restaurant in Bondi is a licensed premises,” Mr Byrnes told the magistrate.
Mr Byrnes bail was continued and he was ordered to reappear in court on February 11.
Do you have a story for The Daily Telegraph? Message 0481 056 618 or email tips@dailytelegraph.com.au
