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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n A former executive at a $7.2 billion artificial intelligence company has been fined $3000 and had criminal convictions recorded after assaulting two musicians during a drunken night out.<\/p>\n Timothy Bentley faced Sydney\u2019s Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, when his barrister was unable to convince the judge that the cybersecurity expert should not attract marks on his previously faultless criminal record.<\/p>\n The former vice president of sales for Asia Pacific at cybersecurity start-up Abnormal AI pleaded guilty to punching two musicians at the Ramblin\u2019 Rascal Tavern in the city centre in February, as this masthead first revealed<\/a>.<\/p>\n He hit Stu Greenwood, of local band The Grand Union, in the face after having had several drinks, according to the agreed facts, leaving the guitarist with a broken nose.<\/p>\n When another musician, John Flaws of Bloody Legend, tried to intervene and stop the fracas, he copped a punch from Bentley directly on his mouth, the court was told.<\/p>\n Bentley\u2019s barrister Tim Lowe attempted to convince the judge his client losing his high-profile job and receiving anger management counselling was punishment enough for his one-off lapse in judgment.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an immediate recognition of my client\u2019s wrongdoing \u2026 he went to a GP and got a referral for assistance and counselling, and began the journey to self-improvement from the very beginning,\u201d Mr Lowe said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is sincerely remorseful \u2026 and ashamed by what has happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n But Deputy Chief Judge Michael Antrum said allowing Bentley to escape conviction would send the wrong message about the scourge of alcohol-fuelled violence.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not just a push, this is not just a mere grapple, this is two distinct strikes to the head,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe community will not accept \u2026 this kind of drunken violence in licensed premises when people are just trying to go out and have a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n He recorded two convictions on Bentley\u2019s record for common assault and ordered him to pay $3000 in fines.<\/p>\n Abnormal AI\u2019s website still lists Bentley as an employee and says he launched its operations in the Asia Pacific region in 2021.<\/p>\n The company provides security services to a quarter of the Fortune 500, representing some of the largest companies in the world, including tools to stop employees falling for phishing scams.<\/p>\n It did not respond to questions about Bentley.<\/p>\n Rohin Sharma, The Grand Union\u2019s guitarist, said that he welcomed the judge\u2019s comments on the assault.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we hope that lessons have been learnt from this unnecessary ordeal, a modest fine for a successful executive is of little direct consolation to the victims,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe defence barrister indicated to the court that his client is \u2018sincerely remorseful and ashamed\u2019, but to date there\u2019s certainly been no public or private apology to his client\u2019s victims, so we\u2019re not quite sure how those two facts are reconciled.<\/p>\n \u201cThe victims continue to bear the effects of this shocking assault and feel like they\u2019ve been an afterthought, having only been kept informed by the media of the downgraded charges and the case progress.\u201d<\/p>\n Bentley had initially been charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm before the charges were downgraded to common assault.<\/p>\n With AAP.<\/p>\n The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Abnormal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5c764c37c2712380af9aeaa620cc741e91c26b1d.jpeg\")
Abnormal AI executive Tim Bentley has had criminal convictions recorded after an incident at the Ramblin\u2019 Rascal Tavern.Janie Barrett<\/p>\n![\"Kishor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767923054_864_d5caa734967eb213b2f2e2a5a051fd787a32a624.png\")
Kishor Napier-Raman<\/a> is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-737845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737845","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=737845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}