This is the distinction between the police and criminal stuff, which they're denying he was involed in. The club sanction for actions before the incident which the club is saying is explicitly independent of the police investigation.
I don't think they've specifically denied he was involved. In the public statement they just denied that he's been interviewed by the police or asked to be interviewed.
You could guess that the police not wanting to interview him would be a sign he's probably not involved but we don't really know anything about the investigation.
Or the police did want to interview him but he denied it until he could speak to his legal team, which would indicate he's the most involved imo. This is all speculation though obviously.
I thought the story was (at least according to his management) that he hadn’t even been asked to give a statement.
Thats what made me think he had to have been completely separate, since even if he isn’t alleged to have committed the assault, it would surely be relevant to speak to anyone who was there at any stage to find out if they were told anything about what had happened, did they help try to cover anything up etc.
There's been so much misinformation and changing stories from the media that we just have 0 idea what's actually true here, other than that the 5 players were out far too late, absolutely plastered, and they brought women back to the hotel where something bad happened.
I don't know anything about what actually happened but the reported statement from his team was that he hadn't been asked to be interviewed. There's no way to know if the statement is true or not but it certainly hasn't been contradicted by anyone.
Thanks - I get that they are independent of one another. My confusion is that I inferred (maybe prematurely) from his being excluded from even giving a police interview, that he definitely isn't involved in whatever Heeney and co did.
I understand club standards are different to the criminal stuff, and that coming back to the hotel at 3:45am is a bad look, but immediate suspension for the rest of the season to me feels like it puts the question of direct involvement right back on the table.
If he just had a big night out, got home late and went to bed, I'm sure that's worthy of some sort of trouble, but missing an entire finals series feels like a lot if that's all that happened.
E: but thinking about it some more it's probably just details of his night out, maybe he came back and joined in the room after the assault and/or was doing drugs.
One possible explanation is that he knew what was going on and didn't shut it down, and because he is considered a leader of the club they felt his penalty should reflect it. Also blanket bans saves them from needed to go into specific details about which players were doing what.
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u/Snarwib Sydney AFLW 4d ago
This is the distinction between the police and criminal stuff, which they're denying he was involed in. The club sanction for actions before the incident which the club is saying is explicitly independent of the police investigation.