A Brisbane solicitor who bashed his neighbour after the well-known barrister yelled at his son and a friend has avoided jail.

October 19, 2018

A Brisbane solicitor who jumped his back fence and bashed his barrister neighbour in a dispute over noisy kids has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Robert Mark Hynes has admitted assaulting Peter Nolan in a short but violent attack in 2016 after the barrister yelled at Hynes’ son and his friend for playing loudly late at night near his guesthouse.

Hynes was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence on Friday, with District Court Judge Bernard Porter noting the case had damaged his reputation and forced him to resign as chairman and a director of his law firm.

Hynes, acting on a report from the 12- and 13-year-old boys that a man had leaned through the family’s tennis court fence while swearing at them, went to investigate the apparent prowler, defence lawyer Jeff Hunter said.

He crossed into Mr Nolan’s property after a verbal altercation, where he pushed the barrister against a wall and punched him in the head four or five times.

“You said ‘no one talks to my f******g kids like that’,” Judge Porter told the court during the sentencing.

Mr Nolan suffered significant bleeding and bruising, along with a retinal tear to his left eye and a nose fracture.

Judge Porter said any parent would sympathise with Hynes’ anger over the children being insulted.

“However, it didn’t stop there, without enquiring and in response to something said to you by a person you didn’t know, you went down into somebody else’s property … and assaulted him,” he said.

Mr Hunter told the court Hynes was unaware it was his neighbour he was assaulting, and there had been problems with prowlers in the past.

Judge Porter noted Hynes’ remorse, but said the impact had been substantial on Mr Nolan.

Not only had he suffered physical injures but his wife had become nervous about their safety at their home and he’d been the victim of false rumours in the legal community, he said.

He noted, however, that Hynes, who has since sold his Ascot home that adjoined Mr Nolan’s property to avoid breaching his bail conditions, was also facing a civil lawsuit over the matter.

There is also the potential he could also lose his right to practice law following this conviction, he said.