Home detention for assault-accused MP as election looms
An independent MP who has been in custody for 10 days will be freed on “oppressive” home detention because special circumstances exist, a court has ruled.
A court has approved the release of a state MP on home detention bail, 10 days after he was taken into custody, accused of assaulting a woman and breaching an intervention order.
South Australian independent Nick McBride, 56, was arrested on December 27 at Conmurra on the Limestone Coast and charged with assaulting a woman known to him.
On Tuesday, a home detention bail inquiry report presented to Adelaide Magistrates Court found McBride was a suitable candidate for release.
His lawyer, Jane Abbey KC, said her client was “well aware” he would return to custody if he breached any court order.
Under the Bail Act, there was a presumption against bail, and McBride was required to demonstrate special circumstances for bail to be approved.
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“There is the fact of an election coming up … his incarceration will necessarily preclude him from contesting a seat that he has held since 2018,” she told magistrate Roderick Jensen.
McBride’s 10 days in custody and the potential delay of his trial also constituted special circumstances, she said.
“I want to be quite clear that the allegations are denied and disputed,” she said.
McBride, who appeared in court via video link from Mt Gambier Prison, was released to live at a property owned by his family that was between 38km and 75km from the property where the alleged victim lives.
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Abbey also noted that the property was 111km from his electorate office in Naracoorte.
“When you come to read the terms of your bail agreement, you will see that home detention bail is a very strict form of bail,” Jensen told McBride.
“There are what might be described properly as oppressive conditions in home detention bail. That is deliberately so, because it is the strictest form of bail that is available.”
“Should you breach any of those strict conditions, it is possible that you might be taken back into custody, and if you were, you might find it more difficult to get bail on a future occasion.”
Abbey offered a surety of $200,000 and three potential guarantors, but Jensen did not require a guarantor and released McBride on a $5000 surety.
McBride was also ordered not to go within 50m of the property where the alleged victim lives.
He was previously charged with three aggravated counts of assaulting the woman on April 10 at Conmurra, and another three charges of aggravated assault were added in October. McBride will return to court on those six charges and the new charges on January 30.
McBride won the safe Liberal seat of MacKillop in the state’s southeast in 2018, but quit the party in 2023 and has since sat on the cross bench.
McBride has previously said he intends to run for his seat again at the state election in March.
He is also a grazier, and his family has owned Conmurra Station since the 1930s.
