Mine worker Benjamin Kellett jailed for breaking colleague’s jaw on Christmas Day

After some ‘rather childish’ bickering, a McArthur River Mine worker has claimed he just wanted ‘to say goodbye’ and ‘give you a cuddle’ before knocking another man out cold.

A boilermaker has faced the Supreme Court over an alleged assault. Picture: Che Chorley

A Darwin boilermaker who broke a colleague’s jaw at the McArthur River Mine minutes after he learned of his father’s death on Christmas Day will spend six months behind bars.

Benjamin Michael Kellett, 32, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court to one count of unlawfully causing serious harm to a Pakistani FIFO worker on December 25, 2022.

The court heard there had been “friction” between the victim and some other staff members leading up to Christmas Day when he made a bullying complaint to the mine captain.

Later that day, the man walked past an “intoxicated” Kellett on the way back to his room after getting off the phone to his sister in Pakistan who just told him their father had died.

“Where do you think you’re going, c—t?” Kellett asked the man, who explained about his father and that he needed to book some flights.

Justice Judith Kelly said Kellett then “grabbed his arm and started shaking him backwards and forwards”, saying “You’re not man enough, you dobbed us in and now you’re running away”.

“He said ‘Why? Real men talk to each other’, you said ‘You’re not man enough’ and the victim replied back ‘You’re not man enough’,” she said.

“It was getting rather childish at this point.”

Now “scared that he was going to be assaulted”, the other man started to video the exchange on his phone and a further argument ensued before Kellett claimed he was “trying to say goodbye” and “to give you a cuddle”.

The victim continued to tell Kellett not to come near him until he walked past him and the other man said “Ah, so that’s how much of a man you are”.

It was at that point Kellett turned and walked back towards him and punched him to the jaw, breaking it and knocking him out cold.

Kellett continued to punch the other man to the body as he lay on the ground but he eventually regained consciousness and after some further back and forth, they each returned to their rooms.

In a victim impact statement, the man said “the pain and grief that this very violent assault has caused me is beyond describing”.

“I was not able to bury my father and attend to my mother, sister and younger brother when they needed me the most,” he said.

“I feel worthless, violated, marginalised and in severe depression.”

In jailing Kellett for three years and two months, suspended after six months, Justice Kelly said bullying by his brothers and the absence of a meaningful father figure as a child went “some limited way to reducing your moral culpability”.