Sam Burgess appeals guilty verdict after intimidating father-in-law Mitchell Hooke

An appeal judge has torn up Sam Burgess’s guilty verdict over an allegation he intimidated his father-in-law Mitchell Hooke.

Former rugby league star Sam Burgess has won an appeal on a charge he intimidated his father-in-law Mitchell Hooke during a heated dispute in 2019.

Burgess did not appear in person in the Goulburn District Court on Friday, where his barrister, Phillip Boulten SC, argued Moss Vale Magistrate Robert Rabbidge was wrong to find the former Rabbitoh’s star guilty of intimidation.

Burgess had always maintained his innocence.

Sam Burgess (right) leaves Moss Vale Local Court in February. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

The case revolved around a stoush with Mr Hooke following an access visit with he and his former partner Phoebe Burgess’s children at Mr Hooke’s home near Bowral.

The court heard Ms Burgess’s triple-0 call, in which she tearily said her former partner “threatened and abused my father ... it can’t be made public”.

“He’s done this to me too,” she said.

“I just had to report this ... he’s 60 years old.”

The prosecution case was that the towering, heavily built former dual code international stood over Mr Hooke and said “I’m going to get you”.

Crown Prosecutor Nerissa Keay said the call showed Ms Burgess was concerned for her former partner, and was not vindictive.

At hearing earlier this year, Burgess admitted he called Mr Hook a “f**king piece of shit”.

Judge Mark Williams accepted Mr Boulten’s argument an “exchange of heated words” didn’t amount to intimidation.

Mr Boulten also said Mr Rabbidge had taken into account “irrelevant” things like Burgess crying in court.

“To be honest, I don’t even remember Mr Burgess having watery eyes.”

“It’s a very shaky idea ... to determine one’s guilt by a particular aspect of a person’s demeanour.”

Sam Burgess has always denied intimidating his father-in-law, Mitchell Hooke. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Mr Boulten said Ms Burgess’s call to police came after a bitter separation which was “shaping up to be a highly contested (divorce)”.

“There was no need for Phoebe Burgess to make a complaint to police … nothing had been done to her.”

He said Mr Rabbidge’s seemed to have thought “basically that these are good and decent people (Ms Burgess and Mr Hooke) and my client is a rugby league player who can be ferocious”.

Judge Williams said the prosecution case didn’t eliminate the possibility that Burgess’s was telling the truth when he denied telling threatening to “get” Mr Hooke.