Salim Mehajer ordered to anger management over taxi driver assault

Sydney businessman Salim Mehajer convicted, fined and sent to anger management over the assault of a taxi driver.

Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer has been convicted on a charge of assaulting a taxi driver. Picture: AAP

Salim Mehajer has been handed a three-year good behaviour bond for assault after he “lost his cool” and struck a taxi driver on the nose outside Sydney’s Star Casino last April.

The 31-year-old, who appeared in a Downing Centre court via video link from Silverwater jail, was convicted for losing his temper in the “spur of the moment” and ordered to pay compensation.

He was also instructed to seek anger management counselling.

Magistrate Vivien Swain said that while Auburn’s former deputy mayor was “late” in entering a guilty plea, he was “entitled to a discount in his sentence, as are all persons who plead guilty.”

The court also heard that as Mehajer had “no previous convictions as at the time of the offence,” Ms Swain would not enter a term of imprisonment.

Mehajer’s criminal conviction is his second in a week. In sentencing, Ms Swain said that while the 31-year-old was recently convicted of assaulting Channel Seven journalist Laura Banks, “an offence that occurred after this matter, on the same day certainly”.

“It’s not a matter this court can take into account when sentencing him.”

In addition to his three-year good behaviour bond, the embattled property developer was ordered to pay Mr Syed $155 for damage caused to the Eftpos machine.

Mehajer was also instructed to pay $459 in compensation to Chloe Lisciotto, whose iPhone 7 was destroyed when Mehajer threw it to the ground.

He is currently behind bars after being refused bail over another matter where he is accused of staging a car crash in 2017 to avoid court.