Luke O’Donnell facing a string of charges including allegedly assaulting female officer
FORMER NSW Origin star Luke O’Donnell told a police officer “listen you c..t you’re not putting handcuffs on me” after he allegedly assaulted a female senior constable, causing her to fall at the doorway of his unit, a court has heard.
NSW
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FORMER NSW Origin star Luke O’Donnell told a police officer “listen you c..t you’re not putting handcuffs on me” after he allegedly assaulted a female senior constable, causing her to fall at the doorway of his unit, a court has heard.
O’Donnell was tasered moments later by officers responding to reports of an intoxicated man “smashing up” the rented Clovelly property in June this year.
Video from a police body-worn camera played during the opening day of a Downing Centre Local Court hearing yesterday showed the former Sydney Rooster threatening officers as they restrained him.
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“Listen you c..t you’re not putting handcuffs on me, I’ll f..king smash you,” he said.
“Get off me, listen idiot c..t get off me, go back to Goulburn f..king police school you f..king pr..k”.
The 38-year-old is fighting charges of intimidation, causing malicious damage, assaulting a female senior constable in the execution of her duty and resisting arrest.
The court heard that Luke’s parents Ross and Diane, from Mollymook, had been staying at his unit, which he shared with his girlfriend, for a family event and the four had gone out for a Chinese dinner earlier in the evening.
But in the early hours of the next morning Luke’s father said his son started “rambling”.
“He is deadset dangerous, as you found out … he is in desperate need of professional help,” Ross O’Donnell told police.
Mr O’Donnell told the court his son at one stage put a knife to his own chin.
He also told police he had to help pull his son back inside after he saw him hanging out of a three-storey window.
“It was the most vivid sight I’ve ever seen from my family, my son in a situation outside three storeys … just hanging,” he said.
But O’Donnell’s lawyer Sheldon Korneluk submitted to Ross O’Donnell that he was “unsure” about what happened in the unit in an interview with police shortly after the incident.
“You struggled to recall incidents of quite significance that you say Luke undertook in the unit … a lot of your evidence was assumption, wasn’t it,” she said.
The court heard O’Donnell’s mother contacted triple-0 because “we wanted help”.
“I was really fearful for Luke, wondering what he would do, probably to himself. He just didn’t seem right,” she said.
When police arrived, O’Donnell is captured on the body-worn camera at the door telling them “where’s your warrant?” and later says “you’re not coming in my f..king house”.
Senior Constable Belinda Jones is seen in the video putting her hands on his forearms.
“He was raising his arm, he was waving it around towards me so I put my hand up to protect myself,” Senior Constable Jones told the court.
“I still had my hands up and somehow I touched his arms. Then I was saying calm down, just trying to talk to him in a calm voice.
“He got more irritated and pushed down on me.”
But Ms Korneluk put to Senior Constable Jones that O’Donnell had moved his arms down to “effectively get out of your grip”.
O’Donnell was a 14-year NRL veteran who played for four clubs and took the field for North Queensland in the 2005 grand final. He opened a chicken shop after retiring and now works as a personal trainer.
The hearing before Magistrate Philip Stewart continues.