“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should not have done that. I’m sorry don’t tell your dad.”
It’s been a little over a month since the Narrabeen surf prodigy Chris Davidson was killed after an alleged one-punch attack outside a bar in rural east coast Australia.
Davidson, forty-five, was allegedly punched in the face by Grant “Grub” Coleman outside the South West Rocks Country Club at around eleven pm on Saturday, September 24.
Davo fell, hit his head on the pavement, lights out. Paramedics treated Davo at the scene and he was taken to Kempsey Hospital but pronounced dead a short time later.
If Coleman pleads guilty or found guilty of “assault causing death” he faces a max of twenty years in prison, twenty-five, if he was intoxicated, with a minimum sixteen year total sentence, eight of ‘em in full-time custody.
As shocking as his death was, it wasn’t a complete surprise. Davo liked to drink, he liked to fight.
Maybe a dozen years ago now, I was woken up in my Californian rental by a pal covered in blood after he went a few rounds with Davo, attacked over some imagined slight.
Now, an Australian tabloid, yeah, the same one that had a swing at your ol pal DR in “Lewd ambush leaves surfer gritting teeth”, has revealed Davo was listed on NSW’s Child Protection Register after being found guilty of indecently assaulting a fifteen-year-old girl in 2017.
He was convicted of stealing a kiss, as they used to say in the darker days of the patriarchy, from the teenager daughter of a pal. When the pal went out, Davo stayed back to watch a movie with the kid.
Court docs revealed he asked her, “Do you have a boyfriend, if so he is a very lucky man”.
Girl felt uncomfortable, went to text her old boy, Davo told her to put the phone away.
She went to her room, he followed, touched her hands and kissed her, making her feel “scared and uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should not have done that,” said Davo. “I’m sorry don’t tell your dad.”
Girl crept out of the house, told someone else who also lived there what had happened.
Man went inside, grabbed Davo off a bed he was laying on and pushed him to the door.
Davo was charged with one count of assault with act of indecency. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a good behaviour bond for three years and put on the Child Protection Register.
One year later, while teaching students of all ages at a surf school in South West Rocks, a job he didn’t declare to the police, he was arrested for breaching the terms of the Register.
Davo told ‘em the incident with the teenage girl didn’t happen and that he shouldn’t be on the Child Protection Register.
Cops charged him with failing to comply with reporting obligations and his bond was revoked.
He was resentenced to a three-year community corrections order and given 100 hours community service.
At the time of his death he was looking at another charge of failing to comply with reporting conditions.