(VIDEO) Sam Wood Remains in Jail After a Queensland Court Denied Bail on the Domestic Violence Charges

MAROOCHYDORE, Australia — Sam Wood, the former Bachelor Australia star and the face of the 28 fitness brand, will remain in jail after a Queensland court denied him bail Thursday on charges of domestic-violence assault and strangulation.

Wood, 46, appeared by video link from custody at Maroochydore Magistrates Court. He put a hand over his face when the ruling was delivered. Police arrested him Saturday night at a beachfront property at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, after a family member called triple-zero around 9 p.m. He is charged with assault occasioning bodily harm in a domestic setting and with strangulation in a domestic setting. The charges are allegations. He has not been convicted.

His lawyer, Mathew Cuskelly, told the court Wood denies the allegations and may argue self-defence. He denied the strangulation count in particular. "My client's step-daughter engaged with him in a hostile manner," Cuskelly said. "Mr Wood pushed his wife away." He said there had been problems, "as all families have," and that "there was hostility, and the complainant moved towards him and continued to yell at him." "This is a man who has no prior history and who disputes the allegations," he said.

Cuskelly also told the court Wood had been diagnosed with severe depression by forensic and clinical psychologist Ian Coyle. "He ought to be given the opportunity to engage therapeutically with mental health professionals," the lawyer said, "and also try to salvage something out of his professional reputation, which has taken a hell of a beating."

Police prosecutor Jeanette Grigoris opposed bail. She said there was an "unacceptable risk" Wood would interfere with witnesses. She said the complainant was "supportive of the charges" and in fear of her safety. "She articulates the banging of her head on the floor. She couldn't breathe," Grigoris said. On the defence point that no injury had been recorded, she said non-fatal strangulation often leaves none. The Australian Financial Review's account of the hearing carried the complainant's reported fear in the headline line that she thought she was going to die.

Wood became a national name as the bachelor on the 2015 season of the Network Ten series, where he met his wife, Snezana. He built 28 by Sam Wood, an online training and nutrition program, and later The Woodshed and Ollo for Women. The company removed him as the public face of 28 after the arrest. Ambassadors linked to the brand have distanced themselves in statements reported since the weekend. The brand's decision is a commercial one. It is not a finding.

Bail in Queensland on a strangulation charge in a domestic setting is refused when the court accepts the prosecution's risk argument. Cuskelly's application rested on the absence of a record, the dispute over what happened in the house, and a diagnosis he said should be treated outside a cell. Grigoris's opposition rested on the complainant's account of being unable to breathe and on the risk to witnesses if he were released. The magistrate accepted the opposition. Wood stays in custody. A further date was not the fact of Thursday's hearing. The fact was the refusal.

The case returns the private fight to a court that has so far heard only the bail application. Self-defence, if it is run, will be tested against the triple-zero call, the complainant's statement, and whatever injuries police did or did not record. Cuskelly has already put the defence version on the record: a stepdaughter who was hostile, a push, a wife who kept coming. Grigoris has put the prosecution version: a woman who said her head was banged on the floor and who could not breathe. Neither version has been tried. The 46-year-old who sold a family fitness brand is in a Queensland jail until a court decides he should not be.