Police on Wednesday (March 11) charged the 59-year-old expat from Western Australia with murder after an altercation with a security guard outside a popular nightclub near Soi Bangla in Patong tuesday night.
Pendlebury was on his way home from a Rotary Club meeting just after midnight when he stopped to film security guards from the Taipan disco ejecting two men from the nightclub.
He said a 25-year-old security guard ordered him to stop filming and then attacked him..
The security guard was apparently stabbed in the ensuing scuffle.
Both men were injured and were taken to Patong Hospital for treatment, but the security guard died about 90 minutes later.
Pendlebury was interviewed by Thai police at the hospital and later taken to Kathu police station where he was formally charged with murder.
He spoke to reporters from his Kathu Police station cell on Wednesday morning. He said he was walking past the disco when he saw two men being thrown out of the nightclub and he started to video the scuffle.
He said a security guard tried to stop him filming and he was then attacked and beaten.
Pendlebury said he pulled out his pocket knife and waved it back and forth to defend himself.
The Australian Honorary Consul in Phuket, Michelle Hawryluck, met with Pendlebury yesterday and a Consul from the Australian Embassy in Bangkok also flew to Phuket. The Australian Embassy continues to provide consular assistance to the man and his Thai wife Cha-cha.
Pendlebury has lived in Phuket for the past 10 years and runs a successful boating business.
– Tim Shaw