Brayden Heyward: Thug convicted of third common assault after causing $20,000 of dental damage

A young Tasmanian traffic controller, intoxicated and “probably” on drugs during a night out, tripped a stranger and then followed it up with a punch that caused $20,000 worth of dental damage.

Ravenswood traffic controller Brayden Charles Heyward, 23. Picture: Facebook

A young Tasmanian traffic controller punched a stranger on a night out so hard he caused $20,000 worth of damage to his teeth, then tried to shake his stricken victim’s hand while he lay bleeding, a court has heard.

Ravenswood traffic controller Brayden Charles Heyward, 23, pleaded guilty in Launceston Magistrates Court on Tuesday to a charge of common assault.

He was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for 18 months, conditional on him entering into a 12-month community correction order and performing 49 hours’ community service.

The court heard it was Heyward’s third conviction for common assault, to go with a previous conviction in Burnie Supreme Court for arson.

The current offence occurred outside Lonnies Niteclub on Brisbane St at about 3.30am on July 3, 2021.

The complainant, who was unknown to Heyward at the time, ran past the defendant trying to catch up with his friends when Heyward stuck out a foot and sent the man crashing to the ground.

Lonnies Niteclub. Picture: Facebook

When the tripped man challenged Heyward, the defendant responded, “Do you want to go?” and punched the stranger to the mouth, causing him to fall to the ground afresh, the court heard.

Two of the complainant’s friends helped sit the victim up against the nightclub’s wall, at which point Heyward sauntered over and said, “I could have done a lot worse, that was a love tap.”

A friend of the complainant responded, “Does that look like a love tap to you?,” pointing to the man’s tooth lying on the ground next to him as his friend sat slumped and bleeding from the mouth.

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Heyward then “continually tried to shake the complainant’s hand,” the court was told.

The complainant sustained a fractured jaw and dental damage worth an estimated $20,000 to repair.

Interviewed subsequently by police, Heyward said he could not remember the incident due to his level of intoxication and the fact he had “probably” been on drugs.

Defence lawyer Andrew Lonergan said that it had been about 18 months since Heyward’s last offending – for a common assault, committed on January 6 last year, for which he has already been sentenced – and that his client “wishes to move forward [and] put this sort of behaviour behind him”.

He said that his client had a long-term partner with whom he has two young children, for which he is the sole-breadwinner in his employment as a traffic controller.

Magistrate Simon Brown, in wholly suspending Heyward’s sentence, was stark in his warning.

“This is your last chance,” he said.

Originally published as Brayden Heyward: Thug convicted of third common assault after causing $20,000 of dental damage