Bathurst RSL president Bill Abbott this week wrote to Bathurst Local Court, where a young man was sentenced on a charge of causing wilful damage to the granite monument.

Kurt Gerrard Wheatley, 20 – had according to a police statement – been staggering and was having difficulty standing up after a hotel security guard witness reported seeing Wheatley “jump and swing about the memorial”.

“He grabbed the two metre tablet and pulled it off its anchor pins and it smashed,” the witness who called and flagged down a passing police patrol said.

“I was just hanging onto it when my mate come and grabbed hold of me and I still had hold of it and it fell down,” Wheatley told police at the scene. “I didn’t realise I was that strong.”

Mr Abbott who attended the entertainment centre soon after reports of the damage were made known said he was “very upset”.

But Mr Abbott also said he was surprised to see the lack of strength in the mounting method used to place the granite Broken Blade monument in its upright position.

“I’m no expert. But I’ve been in the construction industry all my life,” Mr Abbott said.

“The epoxy appears to have long turned brittle. Reinforcing rods are copper pipe, only locating pins.”

Mr Abbott said he “shuddered to think about the consequences if a class of school children might have been around the slab of granite when a couple of lads might have dislodged the stone exceeding one tonne in weight.”

A photograph had been tendered in the court by Wheatley’s solicitor Shane Cunningham showing Mr Abbott viewing the collapsed monument broken into three larger pieces.

Mr Cunningham said there was nothing that could excuse Wheatley’s behaviour, but he drew attention to what Mr Abbott and another RSL executive, Jim McFerran, had said after the monument fell.

“Both commented on the condition of the monument, its appearance over time, when the ‘glue’ or fixing had become somewhat brittle,” Mr Cunningham said.

“There has been a fear expressed about what might have happened to young children in an accident. I put it no higher than that.”