Annette Sharp: Growing list of Australian celebrities’ kids in trouble with the police
You used to have to look to the US for examples of the children of celebrities finding themselves in trouble, writes Annette Sharp. But following a spate of recent arrests, it’s clear the children of Australian stars are quickly catching up.
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It used to be that one looked to the US when looking for an example of the children of celebrities finding themselves in trouble, but following a spate of recent arrests it’s clear the children of Australian stars are quickly catching up.
Last weekend came news of the arrest of football star Wendell Sailor’s son, Tristan, a rising NRL star, who was charged with aggravated sexual assault after an alleged incident involving a 24-year-old woman.
In a sign of the times, when not playing footy the St George-Illawarra rookie enjoys collecting tattoos, wearing black nail-polish and hanging out with his mates at the pub.
At 22, he still lives at home with his mum and dad in Wollongong, something that can delay maturity in adults in their 20s — as can a rugby league career.
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Sailor’s arrest came just days after the 24-year-old son of Sydney radio presenter and former TV host Mike Hammond was convicted of commercial drug supply.
Joshua Hammond was caught by police in September 2019 with $50,000 worth of cocaine — or 279g — in his possession.
The cocaine, when police found it, was in Joshua’s mother’s car but there is no suggestion she was aware of what her son was up to.
His drug problem began, or so the court heard, after he was fired from his plumbing apprenticeship after losing his driver’s licence and breaking up with his girlfriend.
When police raided his a Willoughby home last year, they found nine mobile phones, a safe containing $7000 cash and electronic scales — plainly not the regular collection of mum clutter (lip balm, used disposable coffee cups, old newspapers, nail files) one normally has hanging about.
Hammond, who had previously been convicted of drug supply, was sentenced to serve two years and six months in the community on an intensive corrections order.
A remorseful Mike Hammond told the court about his estranged relationship with his son, prompting a stern rebuke from Judge Robyn Tupman, who said Joshua was solely responsible for his crimes and not his parents.
Harriet Wran, daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran and his wife Jill, had at least been lolling on her own couch and paying $100 a week rent at a Hunters Hill granny flat in the years prior to her 2014 arrest over the murder of a Redfern man, a charge that was later dropped.
But one wonders if Harriet’s life would have turned out differently had she not been the privileged daughter of a high-profile and lauded Labor politician, the NSW premier no less, who was so absorbed in his own demanding life his daughter sought out freedoms beyond her emotional capacity.
Had money and a trust fund been any substitute for vigilant parenting, mutual respect, open dialogue and discipline by her father, at 26 Harriet could have been well on her way in the world.
But, despite the comforts, gifts and unconditional love showered on her by her ageing father (Wran was 61 when she was born) and mother, Harriet acquired a taste for recreational drugs as a teen and later the methamphetamine that would lay waste to her life and land her in jail.
It seems with each passing year, more and more privileged kids are falling foul of the law. And it clearly isn’t just about education. It’s about example too.
Excluding Sailor’s case, drugs also play a part.
In July, 20-year-old Brianna Costigan, daughter of Queensland MP Jason, appeared in a Sydney court charged with serving as a cocaine runner for her boyfriend.
In June last year, Penrith league star Mark Geyer’s daughter Montana, 23, was arrested in possession of cocaine at Royal Randwick. She was sentenced to a 12-month conditional release with no conviction recorded.
The list grows and will only get longer in the more glamorous trenches of Sydney where celebrity is currency worth trading.