A scion of Australian department store royalty has graced the site of what was once one of his family’s shops to instead face a judge over an alleged drunken incident.
Justin Drew, the great-grandson of Grace Bros co-founder Albert Edward Grace, appeared in front of a Sydney magistrate on Monday on charges of assaulting or resisting three different police officers.
Drew, 48, was arrested shortly after 6am on February 21 last year, alongside wife Pippi, at their $1.85million Rose Bay home.
The 48-year-old this week pleaded not guilty to a string of charges at the Downing Centre court – a historic building once known as Grace Bros Piazza.
Officers have previously played bodycam video to the court which allegedly shows Pippi Drew screaming at officers who were called to the scene that morning.
Hotelier Justin Drew, above with wife Pippi, faced a Sydney court charged with assault and resisting police on Monday. He’s the great-grandson of one of the original ‘Grace Brothers’
Drew was charged over a stoush with police outside the couple’s Rose Bay home on February 21, 2020. He also has an apprehended violence order against his wife Pippi
‘We’re a***holes. You f***ing f***ed us up. I’ve got the best lawyers, I’ve got the best lawyer in Sydney,’ she said in the video, according to a court report.
Drew also has an apprehended violence order in force against his wife, who he runs Waterloo’s Cauliflower Hotel alongside.
The case – which will return in May – isn’t the first time the department store-turned-courtroom has played host to a descendant of the retail dynasty.
Drew’s cousin Andrew Grace was pilloried in the tabloids as a ‘poor little rich boy’ after he pleaded guilty to drug importation in 2012.
At the time, a court heard Grace told a nurse he had swallowed condoms filled with cocaine prior to returning to Sydney from Los Angeles, in order to smuggle it past security.
One exploded in his digestive tract. Grace suffered seizures.
Justin Drew’s cousin Andrew Grace was handed a good behaviour bond by the NSW District Court in 2012 for importing cocaine into Australia
A police statement said he pleaded with a nurse at St Vincent’s Hospital: ‘I’m dying, dying, it is going to explode. I’m dead.’
Grace was operated upon, the packages were removed and he was charged with importing a marketable quantity of a border controlled drug – 8.2 grams.
He pleaded guilty at the NSW District Court in early 2012 and was handed a seven months’ suspended jail sentence and a good behaviour bond.
In the years since, Andrew has moved to Byron Bay and married the popular yoga instructor Kimilla Grace.
He also garnered deserved acclaim for rescuing a drowning man in the surf off Sydney’s eastern beaches in 2015.
The Grace Bros name and ubiquitous waratah was scrapped by Coles Myer in NSW in 2004. The department stores became Myer
What is now Sydney’s Downing Centre court was once known as Graces Bros Piazza, above
Andrew is the son of the late Michael Grace, the grandson of company co-founder Albert Grace.
Michael was at various times an executive at the company and was popularly known as ‘The Merchant Prince.’
Michael’s sister, Julia Drew, is Justin’s mother.
Grace Bros was once a household name. In the 1980s, it boasted 163 stores across Australia.
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The company merged with Coles Myer in 1989. In 2004, the company’s last remaining stores were renamed Myer.
Albert Edward Grace (above, with his secretary) and his brother, Joseph Neal Grace, founded the department store chain which was a household name for a century
The original Grace ‘Brothers’ were Albert and Joseph Grace, who migrated from England in the 1880.
They had a background in the retail trade and originally sold goods door to door across the colony.
The brothers opened a small shop on George St, Sydney, in 1885 before later building the five-storey site now known as Broadway Shopping Centre.
