Craig Ross Beauchamp was jailed for three years but won’t serve anymore time in custody

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to stabbing his half brother over a woman but he won’t serve anymore jail time. See why here:

A Toowoomba man who stabbed his brother who had allegedly believed he had taken up with his de facto wife while he was in jail will do no more time in custody.

Craig Ross Beauchamp, 35, had served a total 16 months of a three and a half year jail sentence after being found guilty of two counts of unlawful wounding after a trial before Toowoomba District Court in June 2021.

The trial heard Beauchamp’s half brother Matthew Kahler had stormed into his ex-de facto’s Harristown home on June 27, 2020, to find his brother in the bathroom.

The pair got into a struggle during which time Beauchamp had twice stabbed his brother with a knife, once to the stomach and once to the arm, the court heard.

The stomach wound was three to 4cm long, but the complainant had made a good recovery.

Craig Ross Beauchamp pleaded guilty before Toowoomba District Court on October 31, 2022, to two counts of unlawful wounding arising from a stabbing in 2020.

However, in June this year, the Court of Appeal ruled in Beauchamp’s favour and ordered he be granted a retrial.

He appeared before the same court on Monday to plead guilty to the two charges of unlawful wounding.

Crown prosecutor Ben Jackson told the court the incident had had a marked effect on the whole family and the complainant, with whom Beauchamp no longer spoke when prior to the stabbing Kahler had described his half brother as he best friend.

Beauchamp’s barrister Frank Martin provided written submissions to the court and said his client had already spent 492 days in custody since the incident.

Judge Michael Williamson KC declared those 492 days as time served under the penalty and sentenced Beauchamp to three years in jail but ordered he be released on parole immediately.