Jamil Hopoate: NRL player pleads guilty to assaulting girlfriend at Club Panthers Port Macquarie
The troubled career of NRL player Jamil Hopoate looks to be over after he pleaded guilty to violently assaulting girlfriend Shae Beathe outside a Port Macquarie club.
Mid-North Coast
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The once-promising career of NRL player Jamil Hopoate is in tatters after the 26-year-old pleaded guilty to striking his partner with an “open right palm” and knocking her to the ground outside a Port Macquarie club last year.
Lawyers acting for the off-contract footballer lodged guilty pleas to seven charges in Port Macquarie Local Court on Tuesday.
The most serious charges were two counts of common assault he committed against partner, Shae Beathe, in the car park of Club Panthers on December 28 last year.
Court documents exclusively obtained by The Mid-North Coast News reveal the moment Hopoate struck Ms Beathe to the face, before speeding off in his car and leaving police to tend to his wounded girlfriend’s injuries.
She was taken to Port Macquarie Base Hospital for treatment, while police went out searching for the 26-year-old.
Earlier that night the pair had been drinking and dining inside the Port Macquarie establishment, but left when security kicked Hopoate out for spitting on them and his girlfriend after an argument erupted inside the venue’s pokie room.
Court documents state Ms Beathe had been sending Hopoate text messages that indicated she wanted to leave with their nine-month-old child.
When Hopoate ignored the messages, she entered the pokie room and the matter escalated when Hopoate bent Ms Beathe’s key card and threw it to the ground.
When security intervened, both the guard and Ms Beathe were spat on by Hopoate, and Ms Beathe was then escorted out safely by security.
When all parties left the club and spilled into the club‘s car park, Hopoate threatened to ‘bash’ the guards who had been accompanying Ms Beathe and their child outside.
When Hopoate and Ms Beathe were alone, court documents state Hopoate ‘pushed’ Ms Beathe.
“The accused then struck the victim to the face with an open right palm. The strike was done with such force that it sent the victim stumbling backwards and caused her to fall to the ground some distance from where she has been hit.”
Hopoate then fled the scene in his car, leaving his wounded partner in the car park.
She was escorted to Port Macquarie Base Hospital for treatment, and Hopoate was later arrested along Port Macquarie’s Oxley Highway and charged with mid-range drink driving. He returned a blood-alcohol reading of 0.095.
Police also charged him with two counts of common assault — domestic violence related, driving while license suspended, and two common assault and stalking/intimidation offences committed against the security staff with whom he’d earlier been aggressive towards.
The matter could all but end the off-contracted player‘s hopes of ever playing NRL again, after previously being jailed in 2014 for assaulting two men outside a pub on Sydney’s northern beaches.
He was axed soon after by Manly.
The 26-year-old, who is the son of ex-rugby league player John, and brother of Bulldog, Will, had high hopes of pursuing an extension to his NRL career with another club after leaving the Broncos last year.
He had only just recently returned from QLD to Sydney’s northern beaches, where it was understood he was hoping to ink a deal with a Sydney-based side.
Hopoate had been staying on the Mid-North Coast with his de facto partner’s family at the time of the December assault.
Just two weeks following his arrest, on January 14, he handed himself in at Manly Police Station where he was charged with breaching his AVO and bail conditions.
Hopoate appeared in Manly Local Court on a charge of breaching an AVO (domestic), which was linked to the Port Macquarie charges.
He pleaded guilty to one count of contravene restriction/prohibition in AVO.
As part of that AVO, Hopoate was not allowed to be in the company of his partner for at least 12 hours after drinking alcohol.
Court documents tendered to Manly Local Court showed that Hopoate and his partner went for a night out at the Harbord Diggers Club at Freshwater on Sunday, January 10.
They arrived at the popular club about 6pm and left about 8pm. The court heard that in that time, Hopoate drank six schooners of beer while he played the poker machines or in the club‘s Banksia Lounge.
Magistrate Bruce Williams fined him $700.
Hopoate will be sentenced in the Port Macquarie Local Court on April.
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