Samoa rugby league coach Matt Parish faces Manly Local Court
Elite rugby league coach Matt Parish went to Manly Court in an effort to get out of paying a fine for using a mobile phone while behind the wheel. Instead the magistrate revealed the former NRL player’s poor driving record.
Former NRL first grader and current elite rugby league coach Matt Parish went to Manly Local Court on Wednesday in an effort to get out of paying a fine for using a mobile phone while behind the wheel.
Instead, he walked out with a $337 fine and a lecture from Magistrate Christopher Longley about the “perils” of touching a mobile in the car.
Mr Longley also had a go at Parish about his poor driving record.
Parish, of Manly Vale, who works for the Country Rugby League as its Elite Pathways manager and coached the Samoan national rugby league side last year, was seen holding his black mobile phone in his right hand while stopped at traffic lights.
A Penalty Notice included in court documents said that police saw Parish — who clocked up 55 first grade games with the Balmain Tigers — at the intersection of Kentwell Rd and Condamine St, Allambie, at 7.10am on October 30 last year.
Police said he was holding the device between the car’s door and the steering wheel and he “appeared to be operating the phone”.
Parish, a former assistant coach at the Manly Sea Eagles, told the police at the time: “I was just moving it. I was not texting.”
In court his solicitor Ian Bryne told Magistrate Christopher Longley that while Parish pleaded guilty to the offence of Driver Use Mobile Phone When Not Permitted, he stressed his client was not making a call or composing a text message.
“He was picking up the phone to reconnect it,” Mr Bryne said.
Through his solicitor Parish asked that the court show leniency due to the fact he was not talking or texting on the phone and that he had just completed a traffic offenders program.
But Mr Longley said that holding the mobile phone was still a “distraction”.
He said information in the community provided by the NSW Government and motoring organisations such as the NRMA, about the “perils of even touching a mobile phone”, was at “saturation point”.
Mr Longley also pointed out that Parish had an extremely poor driving record that included two licence suspensions for accumulating too many demerit points. The suspensions were not implemented at the time after Parish agreed to be of good behaviour on the road.
His traffic record, included in the court documents, showed that Parish has been fined six times for speeding since September 2015.
Dramatic arrest when car crashes after alleged police chase
A man has been hit with a string of charges after allegedly taking police on a chase in a stolen Mercedes before it was involved in a crash on the northern beaches.
Inquest call 50 years after mystery disappearance of Sydney woman
A tormented family is calling for an inquest into the mystery disappearance of a young Sydney woman 50 years ago — they believe she may have been murdered.