One of the adults who brawled with youngsters at a Canberra skatepark has been busted using drugs in a breach of the bail conditions imposed on him following the fight, which turned fatal.
The ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday heard Emmanuel Umunakwe had been advised by ACT Corrective Services of a positive test result for cannabis.
"This is an anticipatory breach," Legal Aid duty lawyer Solitaire Zahnleiter told the court.
"I understand Mr Umunakwe has returned a dirty urine."
Ms Zahnleiter said the man, who was 19 when he was charged late last year, admitted using cannabis.
She said Umunakwe did so to "de-stress" amid worries about his "very serious" ongoing court case and concerns about a family member who was in poor health.
Noting that the possession of small amounts of cannabis had been decriminalised in the ACT, Ms Zahnleiter asked Magistrate Robert Cook to remove a ban on its use from Umunakwe's bail conditions.
Prosecutor Michael Gemmell did not oppose that application or apply for bail to be revoked, and Mr Cook agreed to make the variation.
The magistrate cautioned that he was not giving Umunakwe a green light to use marijuana and get behind the wheel of a car, with it still being illegal for a person to drive with cannabis in their system.
The court heard Umunakwe, who pleaded guilty in April to charges including affray and property damage, was listed for sentence before Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker on September 21.
Precisely what the man has admitted to in relation to the September 2020 fight at the Weston skatepark remains unclear.
But court documents tendered prior to his pleas say he was at a party in Duffy when a boy contacted him with a request to provide "back-up" at the pre-arranged fight "in case things went south".
He is said to have travelled to the skatepark in a Mitsubishi Triton with Montgomery Cole White, Jaxson Dillon Kirkwood and a boy who cannot be named because of his age.
According to the documents, Umunakwe and two of the others pulled an 18-year-old man out of a Toyota 86 coupe and "engaged in a physical altercation" with him when they arrived.
He eventually armed himself with a rake, the documents claim, before damaging the Toyota.
During the course of the brawl, which involved a large number of adults and children, the 18-year-old man was fatally stabbed.
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and has pleaded not guilty.
Umunakwe is not accused of killing the deceased teenager.
Police have said he participated in a voluntary interview with investigators in the wake of the fight.
He apparently told them the boy accused of murder showed him a knife following the incident and remarked: "I just stabbed someone."
