By Charlotte Wooldridge | posted on August 6, 2020
A DENMARK head chef and business owner was served a wake-up call in court last week after appearing for a string of charges following an alcohol-fuelled rampage.
Grant Richardson, head chef and owner of Ajar on Shadforth, assaulted a woman and threatened to punch a female police officer while resisting arrest outside the Denmark Hotel on July 16.
Prosecuting Sergeant Dave Loverock told the court the incident occurred around 9.40pm, when Mr Richardson started throwing beer glasses onto the road and proceeded to engage in an altercation with another patron.
The 50-year-old woman had asked Mr Richardson to “calm down”, with the chef subsequently push- ing her with both hands, causing the woman to fall back and hit her head on a concrete step.
The woman received a laceration to her head and was taken to Denmark Health Service where the wound was glued shut.
After being locked out of the pub, Mr Richardson did more damage to the business by smashing a glass panel in an attempt to get back in.
Sgt Loverock told the court that when police found Mr Richardson, he began threatening officers and struggled while being loaded into a police vehicle.
Mr Richardson told the court that he was ready to accept the consequences of his actions.
“I accept that I’ve made really bad decisions on that day,” he said.
Mr Richardson offered an explanation for his behaviour, stating the pressures of starting a new business had triggered the frenzy, but Magistrate Raelene Johnston was not impressed.
“People can die when they get pushed like that,” she said.
As reported in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Richardson had a previous run-in with the law in 2011 when he worked as head chef for an exclusive inner-Sydney bar while “allegedly [supplying] shopping bags full of ecstasy from his kitchen as part of a multimillion-dollar drug syndicate”.
Magistrate Johnston ordered a pre-sentence report, having the matter adjourned to September 3.
