The Perth guy accused of a deadly “coward punch” assault on high-profile former Exertions strategist Tim Picton will struggle a manslaughter rate at trial, a courtroom has heard.
Brodie Dewar, 20, was once arrested after Picton was once hospitalised following the alleged attack outdoor Paramount nightclub, in Perth’s leisure precinct of Northbridge, within the early hours of December 27.
A rate of grievous physically hurt was once upgraded to manslaughter following Picton’s demise days later. Dewar pleaded now not accountable to the rate in Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court docket on Wednesday.
CCTV photos in the past aired in courtroom confirmed Picton, a Mineral Sources director and previous WA Exertions secretary, status and chatting with Dewar outdoor the venue, who then raises his proper arm and punches Picton within the face.
Picton can also be noticed falling to the ground, the place he remained nonetheless. He was once rushed to Royal Perth Health center and positioned in an caused coma after the alleged assault and underwent surgical operation for a major mind bleed and fractured cranium.
Dewar was once arrested over the incident, in addition to a separate attack on a person in Kalamunda, in Perth’s east, days previous, which he pleaded accountable to final week.
However the 20-year-old will struggle the accusation he’s liable for Picton’s demise, with the courtroom in the past listening to Dewar’s claims he was once protecting his younger feminine cousin from undesirable advances at the evening of the alleged incident.
Dewar shall be sentenced over the Kalamunda incident on Would possibly 5 and shall be again ahead of Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court docket a couple of weeks later for a procedural listening to relating to the manslaughter rate ahead of the subject will head to trial.
Picton was once considered the architect of a few of WA Exertions’s largest successes, together with Mark McGowan’s 2021 election win and federal Exertions’s resurgence within the state throughout the 2022 election.
He left politics in 2022 to paintings for Mineral Sources as a director, and had additionally in the past labored with the Victorian and South Australian Exertions events.
Picton’s brother, Chris Picton, is the South Australian state construction minister, and was once previously that state’s well being minister.
Just about 750 other people attended a memorial for Picton at Optus Stadium on January 23.
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