Sam Wood’s legal team confirms plans to take bail fight to Queensland’s Supreme Court

Fitness influencer and former Bachelor star Sam Wood’s legal team will file a new bail application in Queensland’s Supreme Court, his lawyer has confirmed.

Wood, 46, was denied bail at Maroochydore Magistrates Court on Thursday after he was charged with two domestic violence offences, assault occasioning bodily harm and strangulation in a domestic setting.  

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

Wood is defending the charges.

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

Wood’s lawyer Mathew Cuskelly of MPO Legal confirmed to nine.com.au that he has been given preliminary instruction to apply for bail in Queensland’s highest court on Friday.

At the time of writing, the bail application has not yet been formally lodged with the Queensland Supreme Court.

Wood appeared in Maroochydore Magistrates Court via video link on Thursday, represented by Cuskelly and supported by his father Andrew Wood and barrister David Cole.

Wood was wearing prison greens and appeared downcast as he appeared on a screen played to the courtroom.

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The court heard allegations that 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”.

Sergeant Jeanette Grigoris earlier told the court police had obtained a video-recorded statement from Ms Wood, who alleges she experienced “cessations of breath” and the “banging of her head on the floor... that she couldn’t breathe”.  

She said the alleged victim agreed with the charges being laid and police had obtained a recording of the Triple Zero call made during the incident by Eve Markoski-Wood, Ms Wood’s daughter and Wood’s stepdaughter.

The prosecution tendered photographs of the alleged victim’s injuries as well as medical evidence, including statements by paramedics.

In describing the incident, Cuskelly told the court Wood had “pushed (Ms Wood) away”.

“Ultimately as all families have, there was problems... there was hostilities, and the complainant has moved towards him and continued to yell at him.”

Cuskelly told the court there was “a denial in respect to the strangulation”.

He told the court his client had no prior history of offending but Grigoris told the court of a previous alleged domestic violence incident in Melbourne that did not result in a complaint to police being made. 

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 on Monday addressing the charges.

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

“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. 

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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.  

In recent days, fitness identities have moved to distance themselves from the influencer.

DBG Health, the parent company that purchased his home fitness business in 2022 for a reported $71 million, announced they have “terminated all arrangements” with the founder.

Mark Watkin, 28 Group’s chief operating officer, would lead the business in Wood’s absence, it said.

“We have all been shocked and saddened by the matters involving Sam Wood,” Watkin said in a separate statement.

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