A Sydney man has pleaded guilty to the one-punch killing of a Brazilian man outside a Haymarket pub in late 2013.
An altercation between Nicholas Lambaditis, 34, and Eric Heward resulted in Heward’s friend, Brazilian national Lucio Rodrigues, also 34, being struck and hitting his head on the ground.
Rodrigues was treated at the scene, around 2am, on 3 November. Lambaditis was arrested nearby, and charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm. He reportedly told Police he hit Rodrigues because “he was attacking me”, adding “I just wanted to get out of there without getting hurt”.
Rodrigues died in hospital two days later, and the charges against Lambaditis were upgraded to murder.
A hearing in late 2014 in Central Local Court saw CCTV evidence that according to Magistrate Greg Grogin “seems to show there were some words spoken” before the scuffle began, sparking Rodrigues’ involvement.
The incident was one of several ‘one-punch’ deaths that sparked the O’Farrell Government’s mandatory sentencing for such an offence, in the desperate hope of scaring some sense into alcohol-affected, testosterone-fuelled potential offenders.
Lambaditis was due to face trial in the Supreme Court last Monday, but the Crown accepted an early plea of unlawful killing. He will face sentencing in June.
Rodrigues’ family was reportedly “disappointed at the outcome”.