{"id":507199,"date":"2026-02-27T08:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507199\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T08:58:09","slug":"house-of-darwin-founder-shaun-edwards-faces-court-on-domestic-violence-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507199\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Darwin founder Shaun Edwards faces court on domestic violence charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former AFL player and founder of popular Northern Territory fashion label House of Darwin Shaun Edwards has faced court charged with aggravated assault, choking, and strangling.<\/p>\n

Mr Edwards was charged earlier this month following an alleged domestic violence incident in May last year, with a temporary restraining order in place since June.<\/p>\n

Today Darwin Local Court heard Mr Edwards intends to contest the criminal charges and the domestic violence order.<\/p>\n

He was not present in court but his lawyer, Vanessa Farmer, said he was available if required.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Fashion label House of Darwin has expanded to include a charitable foundation focused on delivering sports, education and social initiatives. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

Ms Farmer told the court her client would be pleading not guilty to the charges and requested a future court date so the case could progress.<\/p>\n

Originally founded as a clothing line in 2020, House of Darwin has since expanded to include a charitable foundation focused on delivering sports, education and social initiatives for communities across the NT.<\/p>\n

The business gained international exposure through collaborations with high-profile designers, artists and musicians and has featured in publications such as Broadsheet, Fashion Journal and Urban List.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Darwin Local Court heard Mr Edwards would plead not guilty to all charges and contest a related domestic violence order. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

Earlier this week House of Darwin announced an official partnership with Darwin’s biggest music festival, Bass in the Grass, with a post on social media unveiling festival merchandise.<\/p>\n

Order ‘directly linked’ to charges<\/p>\n

Ms Farmer also represented Mr Edwards on the domestic violence order (DVO) application, which the court heard was “directly linked” to the assault allegations.<\/p>\n

Judge Therese Austin granted a request by NT Police and the alleged victim to have the DVO \u2014 which Mr Edwards contests \u2014 heard alongside the criminal proceedings.<\/p>\n

Ms Farmer said her client wanted to have the order lifted before his criminal charges were resolved, which Judge Austin said could “potentially take a long time”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

This week House of Darwin announced an official partnership with the city’s biggest music festival, Bass in the Grass. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)<\/p>\n

“If there is no basis for an order and it ought not to have been made, it’s in place for 18 months potentially, because it was issued in June [2025] and it won’t be heard until the end of the year,” she said.<\/p>\n

“[There are] work and businesses and things he’s been required to exit and there’s no suggestion in the evidence before the court there’s been a breach.”<\/p>\n

Judge Austin said it would be “highly prejudicial” to Mr Edwards for him to contest the DVO in a separate hearing.<\/p>\n

“Having two hearings where the protected person and the respondent give evidence and are cross-examined twice, and all the witnesses come to court traversing the same issues in a domestic violence allegation \u2026 is not in the interests of justice,” she said.<\/p>\n

Mr Edwards will not be required to attend court in person when the case returns to court on May 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former AFL player and founder of popular Northern Territory fashion label House of Darwin Shaun Edwards has faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,183601,39043,134,53132,254578,246360,254579,254577],"class_list":["post-507199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-darwin-local-court","tag-domestic-violence","tag-entertainment","tag-house-of-darwin","tag-house-of-darwin-founder","tag-shaun-edwards","tag-shaun-edwards-afl","tag-shaun-edwards-domestic-violence-charges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}