Ex-family lawyer found guilty of assaulting police officer girlfriend
A jealous and vicious family lawyer was “very charming” when he first started dating his police officer girlfriend, bombarding her with gifts and kind words. But things soon turned sour.
Police & Courts
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- A barrister accused of assaulting his cop ex-lover faces a lengthy court wait
- Closing submissions begin in Hobart lawyer Daniel John Bearman’s family violence case
A JEALOUS and violent family lawyer has been found guilty of assaulting his “on-again, off-again” police officer girlfriend and her former lover.
Daniel John Bearman, 44, was found guilty in the Hobart Magistrates Court on Monday of three counts of common assault, one count of destroying property and one breach of a police family violence order.
But Deputy Chief Magistrate Michael Daly also acquitted Bearman of one other count of common assault, two counts of trespass and four other family violence order breaches.
Mr Daly said the Howrah woman described Bearman as “very charming” and that he’d bombarded her with presents and compliments before things turned sour.
She said she’d been told Bearman was involved in an outlaw motorcycle gang and was pursuing a relationship with her to access police intelligence information because of her role within the Tasmania Police physical surveillance unit.
Mr Daly said the case before him didn’t touch on the truth of the allegations.
The woman said she’d suspected he was seeing other women.
“He became very controlling and … just wanted to know what I was doing all the time, very jealous,” she previously told the court.
She said she tried to end the relationship in October 2017 but it resumed.
“I felt I couldn’t get away from him. So I would break up with him and then he would – he would desperately try and get me back ... and then it would be more controlling and more arguments and more awful behaviour.”
In his published decision, Mr Daly said Bearman emerged from his girlfriend’s bedroom during August 2017 to discover her ex-lover had arrived.
He said “who the f--- are you?” to the man before Bearman punched him about six times to the hands and forearms and spat at him twice.
Bearman was also found guilty of destroying his partner’s iPhone.
Mr Daly said the pair’s relationship went “underground” until they officially broke up on New Year’s Day 2018.
Describing the relationship as dysfunctional, Mr Daly found Bearman guilty of two counts of assault against the woman on January 2, 2018 – by grabbing her throat and squeezing on two occasions and pushing her, and by raising his fist and moving it towards her face in a threatening manner.
The woman told the court that she fended Bearman off by using pepper spray against him.
But the magistrate said prosecutors had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that during November 2017, Bearman had placed his partner in a bear hug, restrained her a number of times, prevented her from moving and deprived her of her liberty by not letting her leave the bedroom.
He also said there wasn’t enough evidence that he’d committed two counts of trespass by entering her home without permission.
Mr Daly also found Bearman guilty of one count of breaching a family violence order on January 31 that year by leaving a kangaroo paw flower on the woman’s motorbike and waiting for her across the road.
Bearman, who is on bail, will return to court on August 13 ahead of sentence.
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Everybody appearing at Hobart Magistrates Court, Tuesday, October 8
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