Olympian Grant Hackett arrested on the Gold Coast just a year after previous drama
EXCLUSIVE: GRANT Hackett’s desperate family has pleaded for help to get the troubled former swim champ back on track following his Gold Coast arrest today after he “flew into an uncontrollable rage”.
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OLYMPIAN Grant Hackett allegedly “flew into an uncontrollable rage” forcing his family to call the police on him before he was arrested on the Gold Coast today.
Hackett’s dad Neville told the Gold Coast Bulletin the 36-year-old had been drinking heavily and “had a mental breakdown’ at the family’s home earlier today.
It comes as his brother Craig said the former swimming champ was a “completely different person” and pleaded for help.
“This is not Grant Hackett, this is a completely different person, I don’t know who this person is, my mum and dad don’t know this person,” he said.
Hackett was reportedly ‘going off’ and stabbing a knife into a chopping block before his family reported it as a domestic violence incident to police.
TIMELINE: HACKETT’S HIGHS AND LOWS
Eight officers quickly swarmed the property and arrested Hackett without incident. He was taken to Southport watchhouse in cuffs. No one was harmed during the incident.
“Grant’s got a medical problem and it manifested itself here this morning ... he was raving and ranting a bit,” Nev Hackett, who was home with his wife at the time, told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
UPDATE: Grant Hackett appeared dazed as he held up his handcuffs to camera, as the police car pulled into the Southport Watchhouse. #9News pic.twitter.com/Uce7W6au0k
— Nine News Gold Coast (@9NewsGoldCoast) February 15, 2017
UPDATE: Grant Hackett appeared dazed as he held up his handcuffs to camera, as the police car pulled into the Southport Watchhouse. #9News pic.twitter.com/Uce7W6au0k
— Nine News Gold Coast (@9NewsGoldCoast) February 15, 2017
“He’s been receiving treatment from a doctor. He’s big and powerful when he’s not happy.
“We decided he needed some treatment but there was no way he was going to go and get treatment this morning so we called the police.
“The only way the police can do anything under the law of the land is to arrest him for domestic violence.
“No one was touched, no property was damaged, he was raving and ranting a bit but ... He didn’t even make any threats but was not what you say is a normal person.”
Mr Hackett said he thought Grant’s doctor would take him up to Pindara hospital.
He added: “It’s what I’d call a bit of a breakdown.”
Hackett’s brother Craig said the swimming champ was suffering from mental health battles.
“He’s there in person but he’s not there in mind, soul or spirit.
“Mental health, we know how people struggle to get mental health treatment these days ... We’re in no different boat to anyone else, we’re struggling to get that help. We’re pleading for people to help us — help Grant, Grant needs help,” Craig said.
“Nobody can do it, we can’t do it and it’s to the point now where at times, he’s dangerous.
“He’s a danger to himself, he’s a danger to the community and his poor mum and dad have tried to look after him so much.
“I’m concerned for their welfare.”
Craig Hackett said the family had ‘reached the end of the road’ and ‘we just don’t know what to do’.
“He does have days when he’s fantastic but unfortunately it’s becoming that those days are few and far between,” he said.
“There are people all over Australia with this type of mental health.
“We’ve been exposed to this as a family for years now.
“To see someone who was I guess so dominant and he had the world at his feet to now really, we don’t know what’s going to happen — it’s not encouraging but who knows, if he gets the right kind of treatment ... maybe he might be able to claw himself out of it.
Hackett was seen in the back of a police car wearing a baseball cap, white T-shirt and shorts as he was driven into the watch-house.
Footage showed him resting his head on the seat of the car.
Hackett then raised his handcuffs to the window and made a “shake” sign, the friendly “hang loose” gesture often associated with Hawaiian surf culture
Officers are understood to have found him asleep when they arrived.
The 36-year-old, who represented Australia at three Olympic Games was born on the Gold Coast and recently attempted a comeback before the 2016 Rio Games.
**UPDATE** Grant Hackett arrested at his parents house. Witnesses say he was 'going off' and stabbing a knife into a chopping block. https://t.co/fQc7jo3m9P
— 7 News Adelaide (@7NewsAdelaide) February 15, 2017
The 10-time world championship gold medallist has struggled in his personal life in recent years, after retiring from his sport in 2008.
In April last year, Hackett apologised after being accused of “forcefully” groping a passenger and “tweaking” his nipple on an interstate flight after a dispute over a seat being reclined too far.
Hackett phoned his alleged victim to apologise for his actions on a flight from Adelaide to Melbourne. He pledged to donate a sum of money to a charity of the man’s choice.
“I seriously and genuinely regret my poor behaviour,” he said in a statement. “I have stuffed up more than once and am working on these issues.”
It came a couple of years after the former Olympic hero spent time in a US rehab clinic where he was treated for a sleeping pill addiction after photos emerged of him looking lost with a singlet wrapped around his waist as a pair of shorts.
Before that there were two other high profile controversies.
In 2011 he trashed the Melbourne apartment he shared with then wife Candice Alley, who was home with their twin sons.
As many as eight police cars were called to the luxury apartment after a distressed 000 was made to police.
Pictures emerged of the damage caused in the apartment — which included some of the items his wife most cherished like her piano, a dresser and framed photographs.
A bedroom door was also destroyed, as were some of the children’s toys.
The couple later said they were dealing with some “private issues”.
Months later he had an alcohol-fuelled night at Crown Casino during — and after — the Logie Awards in April 2012, where he was asked to leave a Channel 9 party and fell asleep in a stairwell.
At about 3am and the Olympian was approached by bouncers at a nightclub in the casino complex and told he should “call it a night”. Hackett is said to have fully co-operated with staff and promptly left, without an escort.
The following morning Channel 9’s Today aired footage of a sweaty Hackett at the party struggling to form a sentence. When asked by a reporter for his favourite song, Hackett stumbles: “I don’t know my favourite song ‘cos there’s are so many favourite songs. ‘Cos if I could name one I would.”
The following month he and Alley split and he was dumped from his ambassador role at the Alannah and Madeline Foundation which aims to protect children from violence.