Geraldton man Karl Norman Wayne Warner gets suspended sentence for machete attack on public urinator

A 28-year-old Geraldton man who used a machete to cut a man who had been urinating in the carpark of a popular rooftop bar has been spared jail. Karl Norman Wayne Warner was on Monday given an 18-month suspended prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to causing bodily harm to a person, endangering the life, health or safety of a person and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The District Court was told the victim had been drinking with mates at various pubs in Geraldton on September 5, 2020 when they stopped to relieve themselves in the carpark before entering the Old Man and the Sea rooftop bar. Warner was with his family when he saw the group urinating in public and told them: “I don’t want my grandmother to see that, why are you doing that here?” An argument broke out and Warner took a machete out of his pants and lifted it over his head. The victim raise his arm to shield his face as Warner swung the blade down and cut the man’s forearm. The victim was taken to hospital where the wound was cleaned and bandaged, but no stitches were required. After receiving treatment, the victim and a friend drove through the Geraldton CBD and spotted Warner on a street corner near KFC and the Geraldton Hotel. They did several laps of the block before Warner ran out in front of their car and into the bushes, where he and his father proceeded to throw rocks at the vehicle. One of Warner’s rocks shattered the passenger window and hit one of the occupants in the neck. After Warner was taken into custody, police intercepted a phone conversation in which the man asked relatives to threaten the victims into changing their statements to make the charges against him “go away”. Warner’s mother attended her son’s sentencing and told the court: “Our family have no intention for retaliation, we are not racist people. (The victims) have no reason for more fear. He will never do this again, he frightened himself.” Defence counsel George Giudice told the court Warner had carried the machete for “protection” and had only intended to use the blunt edge of the weapon to “scare” the victim. Judge Wendy Gillan conceded the victim’s injuries “could have been much worse” if Warner’s intention had been to inflict significant harm. She said Warner appeared more “settled” in court this week than when he was arrested last year and recognised his admissions of remorse as genuine. Judge Gillan said Warner’s early plea of guilty coupled with the nature of the offending meant he would receive an 18-month prison sentence, which she suspended for 18 months.