“I must say I do not doubt many in the local community would have agreed with (Coleman). Mr Davidson was more than a pest."
A little earlier today, news that Chris Davidson’s killer had been sentenced to three-to-five years in prison for the unlawful death in 2022 of the surf star outside the grandly named South West Rocks Country Club.
In Newcastle District Court on Friday, Judge Peter McGrath was unsparing in his criticism of the men describing them as “both living on past glories.”
Coleman, he said, believed he was the “unofficial sheriff” of the small coastal town and had a fixation with Chris Davidson following the surf star’s conviction in 2017 of indecently assaulting a fifteen-year-old girl.
Coleman saw Chris Davidson approach a nineteen-year-old girl at the bar, kiss her on both cheeks, tell her she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and then offer to take her to France, at which point Coleman started yelling, “You’re a pedeophile!”
It all went to hell and finished outside, Chris Davidson dead on the footpath.
“Mr Coleman felt justified in his attitude towards Mr Davidson,” said McGrath.
“He felt justified in taking the law into his own hands. He felt justified in punching Mr Davidson to the head. In Mr Coleman’s world view, he was something like the unofficial sheriff of South West Rocks and he determined who was and who was not acceptable for the town.
“I must say I do not doubt many in the local community would have agreed with him. Mr Davidson was more than a pest.
“He was, to Mr Coleman’s knowledge and belief, a serious and repeat abuser of young females. He had physically and emotionally abused a friend of Mr Coleman’s and damaged her property and traumatised her two young children but Mr Coleman took the law into his own hands.
“He was judge and jury of Mr Davidson. Tragically, Mr Coleman also became Mr Davidson’s executioner.”
Grant Coleman has been in custody since the fracas and will be eligible for parole in a year-and-a-half.
Small towns, eh?
