Australian Who Threw Bottle From Condo That Killed a Man Has Sentence Reduced by 6 Months

If you have a good memory, you could probably recall the case in 2019 where an Australian National, Andrew Gosling, threw a wine bottle down seven stories, hitting the head of 73-year-old Nasiari Sunee.

Well, previously, on 8 April, Gosling was sentenced to five years and six months of jail for committing a rash act that resulted in death.

However, on 20 Dec (Tues), Justice Chua Lee Ming said that after he had gone through the facts of the case, he found that in no way should Gosling’s sentence exceed five years.

This is because the maximum sentence for performing a rash act causing death is only five years.

Hence, Justice Chua cut Gosling’s sentence by six months.

Gosling was present at the High Court via live video with a shaved head, implying that he is in prison.

Lawyers Argued about the Charges

Gosling’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Sreenivasan Narayanan, who was present at court, gave an argument that the sentence for the two charges his client was convicted of should have been ran concurrently instead of consecutively due to the offences being a single act of throwing the wine bottle.

In addition, Mr Sreenivasan mentioned to the judge that the offences were committed from one transaction and a single state of mind.

He goes on to add that the judge must provide a justification for why the offence was not a single transaction.

Or even if it was a single transaction, the judge must explain the reason for ignoring the single transaction rule.

The one transaction rule essentially converts two or more related offences into a single transaction when considering the punishment.

This is to ensure that the accused is not punished more than once for what is basically the same conduct.

However, despite bringing up the rule, Justice Chua said that he could not accept the argument as it is up to the court to decide when the one transaction rule applies.

What happened?

On 18 Aug 2019, Gosling threw a wine bottle down from the seventh story of 18 Spottiswoode Park Condominium at a group of Muslims who were having a barbeque on the fifth floor at the time of the incident.

The wine bottle, which was thrown from the lift landing, struck Mr Nasiari’s head, which caused a fracture in his skull.

Mr Nasiari eventually died from the injury.

The same bottle also hit the right arm of Mr Nasiari’s wife, Madam Manisah Sitri, who had to wear an arm sling to support her arm after the injury for roughly two months.

Gosling pleaded guilty in February 2022 to committing a rash act and causing grievous hurt, which eventually led to Mr Nasiari’s death and Madam Sitri’s injury.

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Featured Image: The Straits Times & iLiveSg