Grant Oldfield, who murdered 68-year-old Douglas Creek in alleged brutal bashing, dies in custody

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains a graphic image.

Following the death in custody of the murderer who allegedly brutally bashed a 68-year-old man outside his own home two years ago, details about the tragic case have finally been revealed.

Grant Allen Q Oldfield did plead guilty to murdering 68-year-old Douglas Arthur Creek but later launched a legal attempt to change his plea – via a traversal application – before he died late last year.

Few details have been made public over the years, but a newly released document has shed some light on the allegations in the case.

By 2022, Mr Creek was living alone with his two cats in a unit complex on Kett Street, Kambah. He suffered from a number of medical conditions and was in poor health.

Oldfield’s mother lived next door and her son would regularly stay over, even though he also lived in Kambah.

It is alleged his mother had a bad relationship with her pregnant neighbour, and Oldfield had also argued with and threatened this neighbour due to the dispute between the two.

At around 1 am on 22 January 2022, Mr Creek and the pregnant neighbour were talking out the front of the unit complex when the then-49-year-old Oldfield allegedly began yelling at the neighbour from his mother’s balcony, threatening her unborn baby.

“Oi. Enough of that. Don’t you speak to her like that,” Mr Creek told him.

“You wanna stand up for her there … do you mate? Well, I’ll get you too,” Oldfield allegedly replied.

Mr Creek told the neighbour to go inside her home. Then he tried to go into his unit.

It is alleged Oldfield started attacking him before he could get inside his door by punching him multiple times and kicking him in the head while he was on the ground, delivering at least 20 blows.

Mr Creek pleaded with Oldfield to stop, saying, “Mate, I’m 69 years old, leave me alone”. He ended up on the ground in the fetal position.

After Oldfield had allegedly finished the assault, he helped Mr Creek up, sat him on the stairs and threatened that if he ever told anyone what happened, he’d come back.

Mr Creek spoke to another neighbour shortly afterwards, telling her, “I tried to defend myself and I couldn’t. He just kept pounding me”.

Oldfield also spoke to him again, allegedly saying, “I’m sorry mate, I didn’t know it was you”.

“I thought you were somebody else. They’re always having a go at my Mum. Why were you sticking up for [the pregnant neighbour]?” he allegedly said.

Police arrived and found Mr Creek with visible injuries, but he told them he had accidentally fallen into someone, then stumbled and hit his head.

He was taken to Canberra Hospital and told staff that what he had said to police was false. Staff told him he had several head injuries as well as minor bleeding on the brain and recommended he stay in hospital for at least 24 hours, but he discharged himself later that morning.

When he got home, a neighbour asked why he hadn’t been honest with police.

“Oh, you don’t dob in a mate,” he said.

By 11 am on 23 January 2022, two of Mr Creek’s friends had tried to contact him multiple times but hadn’t heard back, so they went to his unit and found him unresponsive. Paramedics arrived and determined he had been dead for some time.

The forensic pathologist who conducted an autopsy thought the cause of death was blunt force head injury.

“The Crown case is that in assaulting the deceased, the accused would have been reckless as to death, or, at the very least, intended to cause serious harm to the deceased,” the document, a Crown case statement, says.

When the matter was briefly heard in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday (1 February), Oldfield’s lawyer, Stephanie Beckedahl of Hugo Law Group, said her client died in December 2023.

He would have been aged 51 when he died. The court has previously heard that he had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

The prosecution will file a notice of abatement, bringing the court proceedings to a close.