A Canberra real estate agent has admitted to drunkenly glassing his wife's former teacher while attending a school reunion.
The attack, caught on CCTV, was unexpected and unprovoked.
Eduardo Ernesto Duran, 39, appeared briefly in the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday to plead guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Duran is the managing director of inStyle Estate Agents, which operates out of Canberra, Queanbeyan and the Central Coast.
On September 17, 2022, he attended his wife's 20-year school reunion at the Fenway Public House in Phillip.
By coincidence, a former teacher of the school in question was also at the venue and, at some stage of the evening, was invited to join his old students.
Recorded both by video and audio, Duran "unexpectedly pulls on the neck" of the former teacher during a conversation, causing the victim to fall forwards and lose his balance.
The two men talked before Duran placed the victim in a "neck hold", pulled on the former educator's scarf and took his glass, from which the offender drank.
The victim was again placed in a "forceful head lock unexpectedly" but managed to pull away while Duran's partner was seen trying to calm the offender down.
It's at this point Duran held the back of the victim's neck in his left hand and punched the glass into the man's face "with considerable force".
Onlookers quickly intervened while the victim "continues to protect himself from the defendant's punches".
"The defendant is observed to casually walk out of the Fenway Public House and does not attempt to provide any medical assistance or intervene with the persons attending to [the victim's] injuries," court documents state.
The former teacher was taken to Canberra Hospital with facial lacerations and required several stitches.
When police first contacted Duran by phone, he told them his actions were inappropriate and that he was intoxicated.
A further assault charge against him was dropped on Thursday, when magistrate Jane Campbell committed his case to the ACT Supreme Court.
He is set to appear before a registrar next month to be allocated a sentencing date.
