Fremantle Dockers player Harley Bennell has stood up for bikie associate friends, telling a court this week a young father they brutally bashed in a brawl outside a Subiaco nightclub had threatened to shoot the AFL footballer.

Al Gerry Morais and Christopher Hallan Blackledge both claimed at their District Court trial they acted in a pre-emptive strike in self-defence when they attacked Jack Talauega outside Voyeur Bar after a Melbourne Cup party in 2016.

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In a vicious bashing captured on CCTV, Morais and Blackledge are seen kicking and stomping on Mr Talauega, who was left with fractures to his eye-socket, cheekbone and jaw.

The pair carried out the bashing with Rebels bikies Peter Michael D’Abreu and Dylan James Adams, who admitted their role in the attack before the trial.

Adams — who killed teenager Charlotte Pemberton in 2015 when he smashed his high-powered motorcycle into a car — had been kicked out of the club for fighting.

Camera Icon Harley Bennell at Docker training. Credit: Danella Bevis

When violence later erupted on the street, Morais and Blackledge claimed they acted to protect themselves after Mr Talauega threatened to shoot them.

Their belief Mr Talauega had a gun, the pair claimed, was backed up by a brief conversation between Morais and Bennell in the lead-up to the brawl, in which the footballer said a Maori man had threatened to shoot him.

Bennell, who said he was “very close friends” with Blackledge and knew Morais, was called as a defence witness and testified the man had confronted him about “giving him the eye”.

“(He said) I’ve got a gun and I’ll shoot you,” Bennell testified.

Camera Icon A CCTV shot from the Voyeur Bar brawl in Subiaco in 2016. Credit: Supplied

Bennell said he took the threat seriously, but did not tell security or police. After watching the CCTV vision, Bennell said he was “200 per cent” sure that the victim was the man who had made the threat.

Morais and Blackledge also claimed they were traumatised from the shooting death of their friend Mitchell Finnerty at a Banksia Grove house about six months earlier and were hyper-vigilant about guns.

But prosecutors argued the men were never in any danger, and were instead on the street and keen to fight.

A jury agreed and on Thursday convicted both men of doing an act which endangered the life, health or safety of Mr Talauega .

Adams and D’Abreu had already pleaded guilty to the same offence.

All four men will appear in court on Wednesday when a sentencing date will be set.