Ex-Knox Grammar boy Nick Drummond issues ‘unconditional apology’
The former private school boy who punched a woman and humiliated her on a night out has issued an “unconditional apology” for his behaviour.
The former private school boy who punched a woman and called her a “sl*t” on a drunken night out last December has issued an “unconditional apology” for his behaviour.
A court heard Knox Grammar graduate Nick Drummond told the young woman to “put her tits away”, snatched her phone out of her hand when she tried to take a picture of him, and knocked her to the ground with a right fist to her face at the Ocean Hotel in Chatswood in Sydney’s north shore.
In the course of the same night, the 20-year-old also punched a male bystander in the head.
Drummond was sentenced by the NSW District Court for assault and destroying property earlier this month, but successfully appealed his conviction, after Judge Robert Sutherland noted he had an “unhappy year” and did not have a criminal record.
He remains on a good behaviour bond previously imposed by a magistrate at Hornsby Local Court.
Now, in a statement this afternoon, Drummond has said he wants “to offer an unconditional apology to the people I have hurt by my actions”.
“They fill me with shame and regret. I am deeply remorseful,” Drummond said.
He also referred to comments made by Judge Sutherland about the female victim’s dress as one that “might have been perceived by a former student of Knox to be provocative”.
The below “Statement from Nicholas Drummond†has found its way to my email inbox at 2.26pm today.
— Tarang / तरंग (@tarang_chawla) September 29, 2021
This statement, assuming it is from him, does not mention the woman he physically and verbally assaulted. The statement says, “I was at fault and I must own it.†pic.twitter.com/dRTvZlXwuv
“The judge’s comments are regrettable and have exposed me to intense media scrutiny,” Drummond said.
“But the fact remains that I was at fault and I must own it. I fully accept responsibility for my actions.
“I do not seek public forgiveness, but I know I will have to work hard towards earning a second chance in life. Whatever I need to do, I will strive to do it.
“I thank my family and friends for their support, and know that I have to move forward as the best human being I was raised to be, in order to repay all those I have let down.
“I am a 20-year-old who did a terrible thing on one night of my life and now I am told it can go one of two ways for me: be crushed to nothingness by those who don’t know me or attempt to rehabilitate and better myself with a view to many years of positively contributing to society. I am going to aim for the latter.
“Sorry again to everyone. I won’t be commenting further.”
Drummond’s statement comes after activists parked a billboard out the front of his former school declaring “you will not silence our pain”.
Women’s health entrepreneur Alice Williams decided to park the billboard truck outside the $34,000-a-year-boys’ school last weekend, outraged by Judge Sutherland’s comments on the female victim’s outfit.
“I don’t think there’s any outfit a woman could wear that would provoke a male to punch her in the face,” Ms Williams told NCA NewsWire.
“It’s 2021 – why is there even a mention of what the woman was wearing?”
Ms Williams, who founded the brand Ovira, said she was moved to take a stand in support of the woman.
The truck bearing the message was parked outside Knox last weekend, as well as outside the District Court.
Chanel Contos, who shot to prominence in mid-February for helping to expose the sexual assault and harassment occurring in Australian schools, shared a similar message of support for Drummond’s victim.
“This is who Nicolas Drummond punched in the face and knocked to the ground,” Contos wrote on her Instagram story, over an image of the young woman.
“This is what she was wearing the night when the judge concluded that Nicolas made a ‘lewd and completely inappropriate remark towards someone he didn’t know but whose dress might have been perceived by a former student of Knox to be provocative’.
“Nicolas Drummond pleaded guilty yet still consequences were had.
“Sending this brave girl so much love.”
The court was told Drummond walked past the woman at the Greengate Hotel in Killara, a suburb north of Chatswood, when he made the comment about her dress, telling her to “put her tits away”.
The woman later walked up to him at the bar and demanded he apologise, to which he responded by telling her to “f*** off”.
After the pub closed, both Drummond and the woman separately went to the Orchard Hotel in Chatswood.
At the Orchard, the woman, in what the judge described as a “provocative” action, tried to take a picture of Drummond.
Drummond responded by snatching the phone out of the woman’s hand, which led to a “tug of war” before he “stomped” on the phone outside the pub, destroying it.
Pub staff tried to throw Drummond out, which led to an altercation during which the male bystander was punched, the judge said.
“There was a physical interaction of a kind which is almost notorious,” Judge Sutherland said.
“And in the process of being physically ejected from the hotel, for reasons which are frankly beyond proper understanding, he threw a punch to a bystander in the hotel, who he did not know, and who on the material before me had done nothing to provoke or invite being the recipient of a punch.”
Outside the pub, the woman ran up to Drummond and confronted him. Drummond “turned around and hit her in the face with a right fist, knocking her to the ground”, the judge said.
Judge Sutherland described Drummond as becoming “overcome emotionally” afterwards.
Explaining his reasoning for why Drummond shouldn’t have a conviction recorded, Judge Sutherland said he’d had a “particularly unhappy and unfortunate 2020” which led him to “go out with his mates and (have) a skinful”.
“The matters that had influenced him at that stage were, in no necessary order of priority, the break-up of a relationship with his girlfriend, surgery undertaken by his father, the death of a family dog, and a dropping out of the course that he was undertaking at university,” the judge said.
He added the incident should be seen as a “one-off”.
“It occurred, as so often is the case, against a background of the inordinate consumption of alcohol and in circumstances where his loose tongue and loose thoughts commenced the entire interaction, after making an inappropriate comment to a young lady who was a complete stranger to him,” Judge Sutherland said.
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