Brother accused of bashing top cop gets bail despite police concerns
One of two brothers accused of bashing an assistant police commissioner has been granted bail, despite police concerns that the young man’s father had intimidated his employer.
Isaiah Stephens, 18, and brother Jay, 20, are charged with assaulting Assistant Police Commissioner Chris O’Neill in the grounds of St Kevin’s College in Toorak last Saturday, after the pair had been asked to get off a train for unruly behaviour.
Mr O’Neill, who was off duty and attending a private function at the school, followed the pair from Heyington train station until the brothers allegedly confronted him and bashed him.
Mr O’Neill, 60, suffered three fractured ribs and bleeding on the brain and was treated in hospital but has since been released.
Isaiah Stephens exhaled deeply on Friday when magistrate Duncan Reynolds found there were compelling reasons for the teenager to be granted bail.
Melbourne Magistrates Court heard he had no criminal history, had stable accommodation and possibly employment and was no longer under the influence of his brother and father, Jared Pihlgren, who are both now in custody.
Mr Pihlgren was arrested on Wednesday after it emerged he allegedly threatened police in a string of menacing posts on social media.
He is now the first person to be charged under new laws that make it an offence to intimidate a law enforcement officer, or their family members.
Isaiah Stephens works in a factory and it emerged in court on Friday that Mr Pihlgren this week threatened his son's employer and posted photographs of that man's wife and children online.
Sergeant Matthew Rizun said the employer was concerned for his safety and this, alongside Mr Stephens' poor performances at work, had jeopardised the young man's ongoing employment.
Sergeant Rizun said police were concerned that if Mr Stephens no longer had a job and was unable to afford to stay at his Malvern East boarding house he might be more inclined to leave Victoria if granted bail.
Mr Stephens' mother lives in Western Australia.
More to come