Sam Wood takes bail fight to Queensland’s highest court after 19 days in custody

Sam Wood’s legal team has filed a bail application in Queensland’s Supreme Court after 19 days in custody.

The Melbourne-based fitness influencer and former Bachelor star was denied bail at Maroochydore Magistrates Court on October 8 after being charged with two domestic violence offences, assault occasioning bodily harm and strangulation in a domestic setting.  

Wood will take his fight to walk free from custody to the state’s highest court next month following a fresh bid for bail.

A Supreme Court hearing is scheduled to take place on November 4.

An application for a non-publication order and other associated orders is also listed for a hearing on Friday.

The accused appeared in Maroochydore Magistrates Court via video link earlier this month, represented by lawyer Mathew Cuskelly and supported by his father Andrew Wood and barrister David Cole.

He was denied bail and was held at a remand centre on the Sunshine Coast until his first court hearing, before being transferred to Brisbane Correctional Centre.

The court heard the Melbourne entrepreneur allegedly pushed and choked his wife Snezana at a luxury apartment in Noosa on October 3.

Wood is defending the charges.

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The court heard allegations the incident had resulted from an argument about going to bed or packing for their departure the next day after Wood and his wife had returned from dinner.

In refusing bail, Magistrate Janelle Boegheim described the allegations as Wood having pushed Ms Wood with one hand into a wall and then to the ground, before grabbing the alleged victim around the neck “gripping tight and restricting the airway”.  

It is alleged Ms Wood told police that she thought “that this was it, that her life was going to end”.  

Boegheim described strangulation as a “particularly grave form of violence”.

Wood’s lawyer told the court there was “a denial in respect to the strangulation”.

He said Wood had been assessed by forensic and clinical psychologist Professor Ian Coyle as suffering from “severe depression”.

A Wood family statement was posted on social media following the charges.

“This is a difficult time for all of us,” the statement, posted to both Wood and Ms Wood's accounts, read.

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“We are working through this as a family and are thoroughly co-operating with the authorities.”

Wood gained a national profile as a star of The Bachelor’s third season in 2015, where he met future wife Snezana.

He later launched a successful home fitness business, 28 By Sam Wood, and sold it in 2022 for reportedly more than $70 million but remained the face of the online platform.

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).