Mehajer’s double assault charge

Salim Mehajer been charged with assault after allegedly stealing from a taxi driver before allegedly attac­king a journalist.

‘Let’s go’: Mehajer fronts up to Seven’s reporter Laura Banks. Picture: Brianne Makin

Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer has twice been charged with assault after allegedly stealing from and assaulting a taxi driver in inner-Sydney’s Pyrmont, before launching an attac­k on a television journalist when he emerged from his jail cell hours later.

The property devel­oper has made regular headlines over his troubled business dealings and ­erratic behaviour, including one occasion where he called his ­estranged wife, Aysha Mehajer, and yelled abuse at her, before threatening to rape her parents.

Mr Mehajer, 30, arrived by taxi at The Star casino about 4.30am yesterday when he allegedly stole an eftpos machine and a mobile phone before assaulting the cab driver.

The driver, aged 38, sustained nose injuries and Mr Mehajer was arrested and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and larceny.

After spending the day in a jail cell, the businessman was released from the Sydney City Central Police Station on conditional bail about 12.30pm yesterday.

‘Let’s go’: Mehajer fronts up to Seven’s reporter Laura Banks. Picture: Brianne Makin

Video footage, captured by media outlets waiting outside, show Mr Mehajer emerging from the police station, dressed in a maroo­n suit from the previous night, and slamming shut the back door of a cab. Once the driver learned of the assault charges his passenger faced, he refused to comply and asked him to “Please get out of my taxi.”

“I don’t know anything about the story, I just got here, they asked me to come here and I’m not going to drive them any more,” he said from inside­ his cab.

A station officer was called outside to remove Mr Mehajer from the taxi but the footage shows him ignoring repeated instruction­s, laughing with his friend in the back seat, locking the door and telling the officer: “I’m not moving.”

At one point, the officer had to reach in through the driver’s seat to unlock the door while Mr Mehajer­ continued a conversation on his mobile phone, which was emblazoned with his name in gold lettering.

Mehajer and Banks.

The scene then descended into chaos, with reporters following him closely as he made a dash towards­ a white Porsche nearby. Seven Network journalist Laura Banks approached Mr Mehajer, asking him “What happened last night, Salim?”, before he invited her into the back seat of his car.

“You want to jump in the back seat? Jump in, I’ll have a little chat to you,” he said. “Let’s go, just jump in.”

Mr Mehajer then forcibly slammed the door shut on Banks’s arm and, once she managed­ to escape, he drove off.

Banks confirmed that her arm and hand had been injured in the incident and she had made a statement to police.

Last night, police responded to her complaint by charging Mr Mehajer with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Salim Mehajer leaves Sydney City Central Police Station yesterday after being charged with assaulting a taxi driver.

Seven news director Jason Morrison told The Australian Banks had been “shaken up”. “You don’t expect that to happen, but unfortunately it’s happening increasingly as reporters go about their jobs,” he said.

Morrison said Mr Mehaj­er’s “unacceptable” behaviour was unsurprising.

“I am amazed at how brazen some of these people are who think it’s OK to whack anyone, let alone a woman doing her job,” he said. “Who would be surprised that someone who disobeyed repeated instructions from a police officer would think it’s OK to whack a woman?”

Morrison said reporters asked questions of people from whom “the public want answers”, and deserved to be treated with respect. “I would have thought that, having led a very public life, by his own doing (Mr Mehajer) would have understood that people want to ask questions of things that happened to him,” he said.

Mr Mehajer will appear in court later this month.