Friend of Stuart MacGill tells police of cricketer’s distress

A panicked Stuart MacGill allegedly texted a friend telling him he was in trouble and needed a place to stay only an hour before he was allegedly kidnapped.

Stuart MacGill.

Andrew Price was at The Oaks Hotel on Sydney’s North Shore when he says he received a panicked text message from retired Test cricketer Stuart MacGill.

“I’m in serious trouble,” MacGill allegedly wrote to Mr Price in a text message at 7pm on April 14.

“There are people out the front of my house, watching the house,” MacGill wrote. “I need somewhere to stay. Can I stay at your house?”

Mr Price had no idea what MacGill was talking about, but replied: “Sure.”

One hour later, MacGill was allegedly kidnapped and taken to a Bringelly farm where he was forced to strip naked and beaten over a botched cocaine deal.

The exchange was included in Mr Price’s statement to police that will form part of the case against the men accused of kidnapping and bashing the cricketing icon.

Stuart MacGill back in his halcyon days playing cricket for Australia. Picture: Phil Hillyard

MacGill has not been charged and police have said the retired cricketer had no involvement in the drug deal.

Mr Price had been close friends with MacGill for just over a year. But this was a side he had not seen of the famous leg spinner who is considered as cricketing royalty.

Mr Price first met McGill at Aristotle’s, the Neutral Bay restaurant owned by MacGill’s girlfriend, Maria O’Meagher, which the famed spin bowler managed.

MacGill’s career as a professional cricketer had equipped him with good people skills and he had introduced Mr Price to a Hunter Valley business person for a significant business deal.

MacGill followed up with a second text saying “Where will I meet you?”. Mr Price replied: “Cafe Zozo”.

Mr Price told police he walked with a friend from The Oaks to the Military Rd cafe but could not find MacGill.

“Stuart then appeared from behind some bushes very distressed and he was crying,” Mr Price told police. “I still had no idea what was going on.”

“Stuart wasn’t making any sense, so my friend suggested we go to his place which was nearby to try and settle him down and find out what was going on,” Mr Price told police.

“We arrived at my friend’s place and for the first ten minutes Stuart wasn’t making any sense and he was just rambling and repeating that he was in trouble and that they had been watching his house,” he told police.

Stuart MacGill and his girlfriend Maria O'Meagher. Picture: Supplied

“Stuart said he got out of his house by smuggling himself in the boot of another occupant of his apartment block,” he said.

Mr Price stopped MacGill’s rambling.

“What’s happened? What’s this all about,” he asked the cricketer.

MacGill allegedly replied: “I’m in trouble but I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Pressed on the detail by Mr Price, MacGill allegedly said: “I introduced Maria’s brother to a guy and the guy has taken off with the money.”

Mr Price was still lost.

“What guy? What money?” he asked MacGill.

MacGill revealed the information he would later tell police that would form the allegation against four men accused of kidnapping him.

Ms O’Meagher’s brother, Marino Sotiropoulos has been charged with kidnapping MacGill and supplying 2kg to a man, a customer at Aristotle’s known as “Sonny”, who MacGill introduced him to.

Mr Price needed more detail: “What do you mean he didn’t pay him?”

MacGill allegedly replied: “The money was short, or it was fake notes. I don’t know but now they want me to pay the difference.”

Key players in Stuart MacGill case

Police allege Sotiropoulos and three other men demanded MacGill pay $150,000 to cover Sonny’s shortfall on the alleged $660,000 drug transaction.

At this point, Mr Price thought MacGill was going to ask him for the money.

“I could go to the bank and get a loan, but I need someone to guarantee the loan,” MacGill told Mr Price, according to the statement.

The bizarre situation still wasn’t computing for Mr Price who asked: “Why are you accountable?”

At that time, MacGill’s phone beeped and he told Mr Price “They want me to go back to his place to look at some old photos” in an effort to identify Sonny.

Before the cricketer left, Mr Price told him: “This is not going away. You have two choices: go back and look at the photos or go to the cops.”

MacGill said: “I can’t go to the cops. I’ll go look at these photos.”

MacGill left a backpack with Mr Price who later dropped it at Aristotle’s.

On April 15 — the day of the alleged kidnapping — Mr Price received a call from a distressed Ms O’Meagher.

Bowler Stuart MacGill celebrates the wicket of Hayden during Sydney Sixes v Brisbane Heat KFC Twenty20 Big Bash match at the SCG in Sydney.

“Stuart needs somewhere to go,” she allegedly said, according to Mr Price’s statement. “He’s been beaten up. Can we come to your place … I’ve got to hide Stuart. He needs somewhere to stay. Can he stay at your place?”

Mr Price agreed but later thought it was a bad idea because he could be putting his own safety at risk.

When Ms O’Meagher arrived in her car, Mr Price offered her $500 and told her to put MacGill in a hotel, which has CCTV cameras.

Mr Price said: “Where’s Stuart?”

Ms O’Meagher replied: “He’s in the boot.”

Mr Price again urged Ms O’Meagher to go to the police but she replied: “ … Stuart doesn’t want to, he’s too scared.”

He said he later went to visit MacGill in a hotel and the cricketer told him the details of the alleged kidnapping, including how he was threatened by a balaclava wearing man armed with bolt cutters.

“One of the guys pulled out some pliers,” MacGill said, according to Mr Price. “I thought he was going to cut my finger off.”

Mr Price again urged the cricketer: “Mate, you don’t have a choice. You have to go to the cops.”

Stuart MacGill with a replica Ashes urn. He will be part of the commentary team for SBS for the 2009 Ashes Tour.

MacGill allegedly said: “But one of them had a gun.”

Mr Price replied: “There’s’ nine and a half thousand cops and they all have guns. I know which side I’d rather be on.”

Ms O’Meagher soon arrived and gave MacGill a drink from a bottle of bourbon, Mr Price told police.

MacGill was still insisting that he had to come up with money to hand over.

Mr Price said he attempted to reason with MacGill.

“This doesn’t make any sense to me and what’s to stop them from coming back next week and asking for another $600,000. Just go to the cops,” Mr Price told police he said.

MacGill allegedly replied: “We can’t go to the cops, they’ll kill us.”

Mr Price told police that on April 20 a man he believed to be Mr Sotiropoulos who allegedly said: “You’ve got to tell me where Stuart is.”

Mr Price said he did not recognise the number but picked it up anyway.

“Mate, I don’t know you from a bar of soap,” Mr Price said he replied.

“You’re probably some African scammer trying to get money from me. If you’re Maria’s brother, you should call her.”

He then hung up but received several more messages from the same number.

Mr Price said he showed them to police when he made the statement on April 22.