Brandon Gallagher: Launceston man bashed woman, bit her face

A Tasmanian man who gets “aggressive” when he drinks left a woman’s face covered in blood after he bit her on the forehead before punching and choking her, a court has heard.

A Tasmanian man who gets “aggressive” when drunk has pleaded guilty to a shocking, unprovoked attack on a woman where he bit her on the face, leaving her forehead gushing with blood, before punching her in the neck and attempting to “strangle” her.

Invermay man Brandon Daniel Chris Gallagher, 23, pleaded guilty in Launceston Magistrates Court on Thursday to eight offences committed during two separate drunken rampages.

On December 18 last year at an address at Kings Meadows, Gallagher and his victim were consuming alcohol together when the woman went to bed about 12.30am.

The court heard Gallagher went into her room and began arguing with the woman before grappling with her in bed.

She “attempted to push him off”, at which point he bit her on the forehead, causing “extensive bleeding”, the court was told.

The woman was then knocked to the floor, where Gallagher “attempted to strangle” her by using his forearm and wrist to punch and apply force to her neck, leaving her “unable to breathe” and on the verge of passing out.

She fled outside and hailed help while Gallagher trashed the house, damaging a “large amount of property”, including by using a knife to stab the hallway wall repeatedly.

Gallagher then abused Tasmania Police officers dispatched to the scene, by calling them “wankers” and “c****”.

In an unrelated incident on July 26 last year, Gallagher attended an address in West Ulverstone where he smashed a window and letterbox and refused to leave when asked by the occupants as they returned home.

Police issued him a move-on order, which he disobeyed and accompanied with a vile spray, threatening to “shoot (an officer) in the head” and “smash them”, among other invective.

It was submitted on Gallagher’s behalf he is unemployed, in receipt of government benefits, and that his “aggressive” behaviour when intoxicated is “significantly at odds” with who the defendant believes he is when he’s sober.

Gallagher was “heavily intoxicated” during both offence dates, the court was told.

Gallagher is currently undergoing treatment via a Community Correction Order imposed in November last year.

Magistrate Ken Stanton adjourned his decision to June 2 to allow Community Corrections to prepare a report into the defendant’s progress under the order.