Brett O’Dea case: New trial over Perth ‘vigilante’ bashing of Alimamy Koroma

A Perth man who severely bashed an African migrant in a misguided vigilante attack has had his conviction overturned by the High Court and will face a retrial. Brett Christopher O’Dea, 46, was found guilty by a jury of committing grievous bodily harm with intent to Alimamy Koroma, a 35-year-old migrant from Sierra Leone, in the driveway of a Manning home in January 2018. Mr Koroma had been chasing a young woman who had attempted to steal from the bowling club where he worked as a cleaner when he was attacked by O’Dea and another man, Jacob Jefferson Webb. O’Dea testified he had heard the woman screaming she had been raped and ran out to protect her, responding in a manner he felt was appropriate at the time. He attacked Mr Koroma with a weapon similar to a hockey stick, kicked him in the face and punched him in the head at least 10 times while he was on the ground. The father-of-one suffered a traumatic brain injury and a fractured skull. He was forced to move into a rehabilitation facility after suffering cognitive impairments that left him unable to work or drive. O’Dea’s trial in the District Court of Western Australia was told Mr Koroma’s brain injury was more likely to have been caused by O’Dea than Webb. It was also possible it was caused by a combination of their acts, prosecutors said. O’Dea was found guilty in 2019 and sentenced to a minimum of four years and three months in prison. The jury was unable to reach a verdict for Webb, who later faced a retrial and was convicted of the alternative charge of unlawfully doing grievous bodily harm. O’Dea’s conviction was upheld last year by WA’s Court of Appeal. But Australia’s highest court on Wednesday ruled O’Dea had suffered a miscarriage of justice because the trial judge had erred in his instructions to the jury. A majority of High Court judges found the instructions, based upon the “broadest” interpretation of the relevant legislation, left it open to the jury to attribute acts to O’Dea that Webb may have been carried out. “That direction was an error of law amounting to a miscarriage of justice,” Justices Michelle Gordon, James Edelman and Simon Steward said. The jury needed to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that O’Dea’s acts, in isolation, were sufficient to have caused the brain injury and were not undertaken in self-defence or because of an honest or reasonable mistake, they said. In dissenting remarks, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and Justice Stephen Gageler found the jury had been entitled to convict O’Dea. The court ordered his conviction be set aside and a new trial held.