Nathan Shelley: Online friendship ends when face-to-face meet ends in brawl

A North Albury man who formed a year-long friendship with another man through online gaming had a spectacular falling out over a card game gone wrong.

Nathan Shelley

Two men who bonded over online gaming had their friendship cut short when one of the men hit the other over the head with a beer bottle during a poker game, a court has head.
Nathan Shelley faced Albury Local Court this week after pleading guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm, as well as another common assault charge.

Shelley had been friends with victim James Annand for 12 months through online gaming before Shelley’s 10-year-old daughter and Mr Annand’s nine-year-old daughter became friends.
Court documents show on Boxing Day last year, Mr Annand, his wife and his daughter packed up their car and drove from Melbourne to North Albury to stay at Shelley’s home so their daughters could meet in person.

Shelley, who is the sole provider for his daughter, took the Annand family out to the pub for dinner where he and Mr Annand started drinking.
When they returned to Shelley’s house the two men engaged in a game of poker and continued to drink.

Shelley kept pushing Mr Annand to places larger bets, and Mrs Annand was uncomfortable with Shelley’s behaviour and decided she wanted to leave.
Shelley told them both to leave and started verbally abusing Mrs Annand while she packed the car.
When Mr Annand defended his wife, Shelley said: “What are you going to do about it?”

Shelley then approached Mr Annand at the rear of his car and struck him in the back of the head with a glass Carlton Draught bottle which gave the victim a large lump on the back of his head.

Mr Annand said: “Calm down mate, I don’t want to do this.” before Shelley tried to push Mrs Annand out of the way.
Mrs Annand stood her ground before the accused pushed her to the ground.
Shelley and Mr Annand then got into a fist fight and fell to the ground in a wrestle before police were called.

When Shelley was arrested he made full admissions to police saying: “I’m not going to lie to you, I hit him over the head with a Carlton Draught bottle”.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Andrew Pike said the threshold for jail hadn’t been crossed, but it was approaching.

Magistrate Richard Funston said Shelley would be rewarded for his early guilty plea.

“You get one chance before this court,” Mr Funston said.
Shelley said he was willing to do “whatever it takes”.

“I felt bad for it so I thought that’s (pleading guilty) the best thing I could do.”

Shelley was sentenced to an 18-month Community Corrections Order with supervision.