Sam Wood will almost certainly walk free within weeks – despite Snezana fearing retribution and prosecutors warning he could ‘interfere’ with Eve: Former judge reveals extraordinary bail conditions that could secure his release

The Bachelor star Sam Wood will almost certainly be granted bail on his third last-ditch attempt, according to an eminent barrister, King’s Counsel (KC) and former judge.

Speaking exclusively to the Mail on condition of anonymity, the KC said Wood could secure his release when he returns to court on November 17.

By then, the 46-year-old will have spent more than six weeks in prison, mostly in the overcrowded Wolston Correctional Centre, which houses more than 900 maximum-security inmates.

But the disgraced TV star faces a stark new reality upon release – an accused offender, estranged from his wife and children, his businesses ruined, and a social pariah.

The multi-million dollar fitness entrepreneur has been held in the facility for high-profile prisoners since his first unsuccessful bail application on October 8, and was expected to walk out – only to be refused again last week.

The KC said he was surprised Wood failed to convince a judge on October 30 that he did not pose a risk to the community, his estranged wife, or his stepdaughter Eve – risks that, in theory, could be managed under strict conditions.

Those conditions would include barring the disgraced fitness influencer from entering Victoria, where his family lives; restricting him to one mobile phone; banning encrypted apps and social media; requiring regular police reporting; prohibiting alcohol and drugs; and allowing officers to test him at any time.

‘He is clear of any criminal history, he has been a success in business and the likely sentence is a major factor,’ the KC told the Mail.

‘If the time he would spend in prison if not granted bail is longer than the sentence he would get, that is a big factor.

‘Is he a risk to anyone in the community? I don’t think so. Is he a risk to the complainant? The risk can be mitigated with heavy security, like the $1million surety that has been offered and all the conditions.

‘I would think he is a walk-up start for getting bail any day of the week.’

The KC said he was not surprised that Wood’s initial bail application in Maroochydore Local Court five days after his arrest had been unsuccessful.

Wood did not appear via AVL or in person at his first, brief court hearing two days after his arrest, but was on screen for his first court bail application, on Thursday, October 8, looking dishevelled and slumped forward in a prison green sweatshirt, his eyes downcast.

On that occasion, a police officer told the court that Snezana did not oppose police proceeding with the charges against her husband and that, while Wood was allegedly strangling her, she ‘had thought she was going to die’.

In a recorded police interview, Snezana had described being choked, not being able to breathe, and banging her head against the floor. 

That bail hearing was told Snezana, who was by then back in Victoria with her children, was ‘in fear of retribution of the defendant’ and acting Magistrate Janelle Boegheim denied Wood bail.

The KC said that it was now ‘increasingly unusual for magistrates to give bail and on high-profile domestic violence matters, they are scared of letting people out in case they go back to the complainant and kill them’.

‘But going to the Supreme Court, I have a very good success rate because a judge will not want – if it’s likely to be a shorter sentence – being on remand and refused bail to be the start of the sentence or the sentence itself.

‘Sometimes when you miss out and have the right to apply to the Court of Criminal Appeal in NSW, or the Court of Appeal in Queensland, where your success rates are about 50 per cent.’

‘If it is error-based it would be pretty easy to find error [with the previous decision].’

The Notice of Appeal seen by the Mail relies heavily on the assertion that Supreme Court Justice Patrick McCafferty’s decision last week to refuse Wood’s second bail application was flawed.

The reality TV star’s lawyers claim McCafferty, who was only sworn in as a Supreme Court of Queensland judge just under a year ago, made several errors and that his refusal was ‘unreasonable or plainly unjust’.

The appeal claims McCafferty – who also considered the prosecutor’s argument that Wood could ‘obstruct the course of justice [and] interfere with the witness’ Eve – erred in failing to consider whether the proposed conditions, individually or in combination would reduce the risk of further offending’.

The KC agreed that probably ‘too much weight may have been given to one factor. If I had been on the Supreme Court, I would have bailed him in ten seconds. I wouldn’t have worried about his notoriety.

‘One of the keys to winning bail is to have tightly written submissions filed to the court well in advance – tight and to the point and no bull s**t.’

On bail, Wood is likely to live with his father, Andrew Wood, in Hobart, where he grew up and where Wood Sr was a well-liked restaurant manager at Fish Frenzy, a popular waterfront seafood outlet on the city’s iconic finger wharf, the Elizabeth Street Pier.

Sam has two younger siblings, sister Hannah and brother Alex, who also live in Tasmania, where his lawyers have indicated he would remain if released later this month.  

Wood’s last moments of freedom were on the Saturday night before he was due to fly home, just before being arrested inside the $3,000-a-night La Mer resort in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

He and Snezana, who met in 2015 on the third season of The Bachelor Australia, and married in 2018, were holidaying with their three young daughters.

Joining them in Noosa for the week was Wood’s 21-year-old stepdaughter, Eve Markoski-Wood, home from her studies at New York fashion school the Parsons School of Design.

Before going out to dinner, where he consumed several drinks, Wood had made his last public statement via his 28 by Sam Wood private community Facebook page.

He had sold his fitness and training business 28 by Sam Wood in 2022 to DBC Health for $71million but was still retained on its payroll and as its face and name. 

After extolling the delights of their school holiday activities, Wood wrote: ‘Sometimes you don’t realise how low your battery is until you plug in and recharge and I was almost flat.

‘But I’m back, baby, and can’t wait to see you all more than ever before from Monday.

‘I mean it. You’ll be sick of seeing so much of me.’

He could not have been more wrong. After he allegedly strangled his wife to the floor at 9.20pm, Eve called Triple-Zero, bringing paramedics – and then police – into the luxury apartment. 

Uniformed officers handcuffed Wood and drove him in a police van 40km south to Maroochydore, the Sunshine Coast’s commercial capital.

At Maroochydore Watchhouse, he was placed in a cell, where he remained for five days, not appearing in person or via AVL at the brief court hearing held on the Monday to mention his charges.

The day after his arrest, Snezana and Sam issued a joint ‘Statement from the Wood family’.

It said: ‘This is a difficult time for all of us, we are working through this as a family and are thoroughly co-operating with the authorities.’

Posted on both of their Instagram accounts, it was the final display of solidarity between Snezana and her husband, whose own barrister told the court last week they were ‘expected to separate’.

By then, Snezana had already returned to Victoria with her children after giving a video statement to Queensland Police, supporting their decision to proceed with charges against her husband.

Meanwhile, ’28 by Sam Wood’ ceased to exist, with DBG Health stripping his name from the franchise, reverting it to ’28’ before rebranding it entirely as ‘evvr’.

His other startup, Ollo for Women, a 12-week menopause program, for which he had filmed a promotional video exercising with middle-aged women, stalled, and his name was removed from his Melbourne gym, The Woodshed.

On Thursday, October 8, Wood was placed in the watchhouse’s AVL booth to appear via video link in Maroochydore Magistrates Court, facing charges of strangulation in a domestic setting and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

That was the last anyone outside the prison system saw of him.

Denied bail by the magistrate, Wood was transferred by prison van that night – 121km away – to Brisbane Correctional Centre.

Days later, he was taken a short distance – just 2.7km west – to maximum-security Wolston Correctional Centre, one of five prisons in Queensland’s major prison precinct at Wacol.

If, as the KC predicts, Sam Wood is granted bail the week after next by three justices of the Queensland Court of Criminal Appeal, he will step out of prison into a very different world.

’28 with Sam Wood’ no longer exists – except, ironically, as the exact number of days between his arrest and his second failed bail application.

By his likely successful third attempt, it will be ’46 with Sam Wood’ – and perhaps 365 if his barrister is right that he’ll receive a minimum 12-month sentence at trial.

He will be a bachelor once more, but this time under a reporting order to his local police station, possibly wearing a satellite tracking anklet, and with no social events on his calendar apart from sober family gatherings.

Wood’s case is unlikely to be heard in a Queensland court before late 2027 or early 2028.