The Men’s Galley strip club’s alleged shooter fronts court

A man charged with a shooting outside a Melbourne stripclub has made a plea for bail claiming being in custody on his bithday was an “exceptional circumstance”.

Police investigate a shooting Daniel Bodagh was allegedly involved at The Men’s Gallery strip club. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

A man charged over a shooting outside a Melbourne strip club late last year has been granted bail because being in custody on his birthday was an “exceptional circumstance”, a court has heard.

The Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday denied a police application for Daniel Bodagh’s bail to be revoked between now and March 4 when he’ll reappear for mention.

The 24-year-old was one of two men charged over the shooting in early December last year outside The Men’s Gallery strip club

Mr Bodagh and Walid Chaaban, also 24, have been charged with intentionally causing injury, recklessly causing injury, reckless conduct endangering life, the use of a firearm in a dangerous manner, carrying a loaded firearm in a town/populous place, possessing a loaded firearm in a public place and affray.

A man involved in an alleged shooting in central Melbourne has been granted bail as he has had to spend his birthday in custody.

The pair were charged after a 19-year-old man, from Niddrie, was shot about 4am on December 10 following an altercation inside the Lonsdale St venue. He was rushed to hospital with serious injuries.

It is alleged Mr Chaaban and Mr Bodagh left the scene in a vehicle following the shooting but were found and charged later that day.

In court on Monday, Magistrate Marita Altman came to the conclusion that Mr Bodagh should be granted bail due to a combination of factors.

They included him being in custody during his birthday last week and the impact that would have had on him and his family.

A lack of prior conviction and the availability of the Court Integrated Services Program were the other factors.

However, she warned him not to push his luck.

“If you continue to run around with people who are behaving like gangsters and therefore yourself behaving like a gangster, you’ll get locked up again,” Ms Altman said.

“I won’t know how much more simple I can make it. There are many that would say that you never should have got bail out of me.”

When Mr Bodagh said ‘I’ll do alright’, the magistrate said “You have to, because if you go home today and look into the eye and faces of your parents and make promises to them about what’s going to happen having put them through this and then you let them down, I don’t know what sort of a person or a man that would make you.”

“Because really, you might think that running around with people with firearms and drugs and carrying on, it makes you some sort of a man. I can tell you that it does not.

“What makes you a man now going forward is keeping the promise that you are making to your parents when you sign this bail undertaking.

“There’s no way in the world that they deserve the hard act you’ve been putting them through. It’s time to stop. If you get arrested again, I can tell you there’ll be no bail,” she said.