Samuel Smith, 22, of Naylor Crescent, Warrnambool, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court to recklessly causing injury.

Police alleged that on April 14 at 3.10am Mr Smith and a friend were at the supervised Timor Street taxi rank while the victim was alone with a large bag of dim sims.

The victim was offering dim sims to other people and Mr Smith’s friend tried to knock the food out of the man’s hands a number of times.

The victim asked the friend to stop and then attempted to punch him but the blow was blocked.

Mr Smith then stepped in and punched the dim sim holder between one and three times. 

The victim lost balance, fell to ground and hit his head on concrete.

He suffered a wound to his skull, lost consciousness for a couple of minutes and was taken to hospital for treatment. Mr Smith told police he was trying to stop his friend being hurt.

In imposing a $1500 fine without conviction, magistrate Ann McGarvie said that many people had died in similar circumstances and Mr Smith was extremely fortunate the victim did not suffer a serious injury or been killed.

She said there had been incidents in which people had been punched unconscious, fallen to ground and hit their heads, then gone home to bed only be to be found dead by their mothers the next day.

Ms McGarvie said Smith was young, had no prior convictions and wanted to travel overseas.

She told Mr Smith that if someone was being a nuisance then he should have sought assistance from the security guards and not intervened like he did.