A Melbourne thug who heckled a beggar, threatened a Good Samaritan and attacked a journalist filming the incident has been fined for riotous behaviour.

At approximately 9pm Friday March 18, a reporter from The New Daily saw two men in dark clothing accosting a beggar on Southbank’s Evan Walker footbridge on the Yarra River in downtown Melbourne.

The victim, a skinny bearded man in a tattered hoody and tracksuit pants, was sitting on the ground, with a baseball cap containing a few coins at his feet.

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While our reporter watched, one of the men, who wore a t-shirt bearing the slogan “Cocaine & Caviar”, picked up the beggar’s cap and held it in the beggar’s face, saying things like: “Have a f***ing go, mate” and “Get a job”. The victim later told The New Daily he did nothing to provoke the men apart from ask for spare change.

The two men continued to berate and swear at the beggar until bystanders intervened.

Homelessness Australia chair Jenny Smith said that bullying and harassment is “a real and significant danger” for people forced to sleep rough.

Ms Smith pointed to the killing of a homeless man in Sydney in March 2016 and the stabbing death of Wayne ‘Mouse’ Perry in Melbourne in January 2014 as examples of this danger.

“Every day many people are kind and generous to people sleeping rough, but every day they also endure the disdainful looks and unkind words of some passers-by. Like other bullying, this has devastating impacts on people’s wellbeing, exacerbating an already dreadful situation,” Ms Smith said.

As seen in the video, the heckling of the beggar was interrupted by a Good Samaritan. This man, dressed in jogging gear, walked over and stood next to the beggar, calmly telling the two men to stop. That’s when The New Daily‘s reporter started filming.

“What, are we hurting him are we?” one of the two harassers can be heard to say in the video.

“You’re up in his face,” the jogger replied.

One of the two men then attempted to goad the jogger to fight: “Do you want to rock and roll? Do you want to rock and roll or not?”

The Good Samaritan made it clear he did not want violence, but that he would not abandon the beggar.

As the three men talked, one of the harassers, his hair shaved into a mohawk, with tattoos on his forearms and neck, a gold chain around his neck and wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt, noticed he was being filmed. The situation quickly turned violent.

Watch the full video here:

“You wanna have a crack?” the tattooed man said repeatedly as he walked towards the journalist and threw a punch that struck the journalist’s phone, hand and face.

The New Daily‘s reporter stopped filming to defend himself. A melee ensued. The tattooed man and the reporter traded blows. The second man in the “Cocaine & Caviar” t-shirt also threatened the journalist (“I’ll knock you the f*** out”), but did not attack.

The Good Samaritan again intervened, allowing the reporter to retreat to the opposite side of the bridge. The beggar was unharmed. The reporter suffered minor injuries.

The tattooed man was arrested minutes later on Elizabeth Street. Police issued him with an on-the-spot infringement notice for the summary criminal offence of riotous behaviour. The notice imposes a fine of $607 if unchallenged in court. He was also banned from the Melbourne CBD for 72 hours.

The New Daily’s reporter did not press for a more serious criminal charge.