The man accused of fatally attacking Tim Picton claims the influential business and Labor figure was repeatedly hitting on an 18-year-old girl at a Perth nightclub before being evicted from the premises due to intoxication, a court has heard.
Footage of the Picton incident played during an earlier hearing showed the Mineral Resources director and former WA Labor secretary standing and talking calmly to a man police allege was Brodie Jake Dewar, who raises his right arm and punches Picton in the face.
Picton can be seen falling to the floor, where he remained still. Dewar, 20, was arrested and charged over the incident, which took place in the early hours of December 27.
He was released on bail while Picton remained in a coma in hospital, but that was revoked in January when he was charged over a second similar attack in the Perth Hills suburb of Kalamunda on Christmas Day.
On Friday, Dewar made another bid for bail in Perth Magistrates Court, revealing further information about the night he allegedly assaulted the 36-year-old father and husband.
During the hearing, Dewar’s lawyer Simon Watters told the court his client’s 18-year-old cousin had been repeatedly approached by Picton at the Paramount Nightclub on Boxing Day evening.
“There was an incident earlier that night,” he said.
“He comes up behind her and puts his hands on her waist, this starts at about 3am.
“She is 18 years old and with Mr Dewar … Mr Picton comes up behind her, and she told him no, she said she didn’t want to dance with him.
“Mr Picton grabbed her again and tried to dance with her. Mr Dewar then enters the story … told him to stop and go away. Mr Dewar didn’t grab him. Mr Picton let go of her and she continued her night with her friends.”
Watters told the court the girl had provided police with a statement about what happened, which included claims that Picton continued to approach her in the nightclub, as well as outside after he had been asked to leave due to his level of intoxication.
Watters said Picton approached the girl again as she was waiting for an Uber, which led to Dewar approaching him before allegedly punching him in the face.
The court was told Dewar had been assaulted from behind five minutes earlier by an unrelated person, and Watters said the 20-year-old assumed he was going to be assaulted by Picton during their interaction, leading him to “throw a punch first”.
He said it was the “belligerence and self-entitlement” of Picton towards Dewar’s cousin that caused the animosity and in turn caused the 20-year-old to act in self-defence.
Two days before that incident, Dewar allegedly assaulted another man outside the Kalamunda Hotel who he claimed was “hitting on” his younger sister.
In that incident, Dewar allegedly filmed the man as he lay unconscious on the ground, telling the man to “keep on snoring” and “don’t hit on my younger sister next time brother”.
The court heard the man has since recovered from minor injuries.
During the hearing in January, Magistrate Mark Millington said Dewar was “an inherent risk to the community”.
But in a convoluted turn of events on Friday, the 20-year-old had bail denied on some of his charges, but approved on the manslaughter charge against Picton.
However, he cannot be released until bail has been approved for all charges. He will return to court next week.
Picton was regarded as the architect of some of WA Labor’s biggest successes, including Mark McGowan’s 2021 election win and federal Labor’s resurgence in the state during the 2022 election.
He left politics in 2022 to work for Mineral Resources as a director, and had also previously worked with the Victorian and South Australian Labor parties.
Nearly 750 people attended a memorial for him at Optus Stadium on January 23.
His wife Priya Brown and four-year-old daughter Charlotte were joined by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, McGowan, current WA Premier Roger Cook, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Mineral Resources boss Chris Ellison.
Tributes flowed for days after his death with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suggesting he had no doubt he would have been sitting on a Labor government front bench one day.
Picton’s brother Chris Picton, who is Health Minister in the South Australian government, travelled to WA to be with his brother while he was in a coma.
In his first interview since the incident he said he was “beyond angry”.
“The shock that we had on that Saturday morning, getting that phone call, still haunts me and my family to this day,” he said.
“It was unlikely that Tim was going to come back, but we were still obviously all hoping for a miracle.”
with Hamish Hastie
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