A prominent ecologist who allegedly breached bail by attending a protest at NSW Forestry Corporation offices and allegedly injuring a police officer has been ordered to stay at least 500 metres away from the state-owned logging service.<\/p>\n
Mark Stewart Graham was arrested in June after he attended and filmed an environmental protest at the Forestry Corporation offices in Coffs Harbour.<\/p>\n
Police allege he attempted to avoid arrest and struck a police officer on the foot.<\/p>\n
He was later released on bail.<\/p>\n
Mr Graham was arrested again on July 9 after he allegedly sent a message to the mother of Coffs Harbour Mayor Nikki Williams on July 8, saying that the mayor had “earned a place in hell”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 49-year-old was denied bail at Coffs Harbour Local Court earlier this month on charges of intimidation, contravening an AVO, and hindering police.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, he appeared before the NSW Supreme Court via video link, where he again sought bail release.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
City of Coffs Harbour Mayor Nikki Williams. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Justice Richard Weinstein granted bail on the condition that Mr Graham not travel within half a kilometre of the Forestry Corporation offices.<\/p>\n
Justice Weinstein remarked that a Forestry Corporation vehicle was akin to “a red flag to a bull” for the defendant.<\/p>\n
“It’s a very volatile situation up there,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We want to prevent the volatility.”<\/p>\n
‘Unusual little case’<\/p>\n
Mr Graham is a prominent local environmentalist and campaigner who has previously featured in ABC documentaries, including Australia’s Wild Odyssey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He also served as a one-term councillor on the City of Coffs Harbour Council in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In opposing his bail, the DPP argued the defendant posed an “unacceptable risk to workers and the community”. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But Justice Weinstein said that by not granting bail, it was possible that Mr Graham could spend nine months in custody, which would likely exceed the non-parole period for the offences he was charged with.<\/p>\n
Affidavits and letters of support for Mr Graham were tendered to the court, including from the CEO of the Bob Brown Foundation, Steven Chaffer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark Graham’s bail hearing was heard in the NSW Supreme Court. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Justice Weinstein said that these significant community ties and his relatively recent criminal history had to be weighed against his risk in what he described as an “unusual little case”.<\/p>\n
“Mr Graham is a perfectly respectable citizen until about 2022 or thereabouts, perfectly law-abiding, and then on one view, he goes a little bit off the rails after that,” Mr Weinstein said.<\/p>\n
“It is not the most serious of offences, but serious enough.”<\/p>\n
As part of his bail conditions, Mr Graham will have to report daily to Coffs Harbour police station, is subject to a curfew, and must not use or possess any encrypted device or approach any prosecution witnesses.<\/p>\n
Mr Graham will return to Coffs Harbour Local Court on September 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prominent ecologist who allegedly breached bail by attending a protest at NSW Forestry Corporation offices and allegedly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,62518,62520,48,8174,62519,62517,62522,62521,85,62516],"class_list":["post-82719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carriage-service","tag-city-of-coffs-harbour","tag-crime","tag-ecology","tag-forestry-corporation","tag-intimidate","tag-mark-graham","tag-nikki-williams","tag-sports","tag-stalk-harrass-offend"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82719","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=82719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}