By Perry Duffin
NRL personality Paul Kent has pleaded guilty to affray after failing to convince a court his depression and alcohol problems should spare him from punishment three months after coming off second best in a drunken brawl outside a Sydney pub.
Kent will avoid formal conviction after he drank schooners of beer for 11 hours at the Sackville Hotel in Rozelle before being filmed clashing with a stranger, Tamer Uzun, in April this year.
Paul Kent arrives at court on Wednesday to argue one charge of affray should be dealt with under mental health laws.Credit: Kate Geraghty
The Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday heard Kent had been walking home with friends when Uzun, standing outside the Three Weeds Hotel, asked Kent if he would be “going to the match tomorrow”.
Kent understood the match was raising awareness of domestic violence – a crime he had been cleared of at the end of 2023.
“Kent said ‘no’ and [Uzun] said ‘that’s right, you like to bash women’,” magistrate Jennifer Price read from police documents.
The then Daily Telegraph and Foxtel NRL360 journalist branded Uzun a “doghead” while taking off his watch and fighting off efforts to subdue him, the courts have heard.
Uzun, 35, and Kent, 54, allegedly traded blows before the older man was flung into a roadside tree.
He was left with six broken ribs and collapsed lung and Price said it was clear Kent had “come off second best”.
This week, News Corp papers reported Kent had been sacked from his job just one day before fronting court to ask Price to deal with the single charge of affray on mental health grounds.
Price accepted Kent had both alcohol use disorder and a major depressive disorder, but said community safety and deterrence meant he was to be dealt with under the law – not mental health legislation.
Kent immediately pleaded guilty.
“Wherever he goes, even this morning, some people approach him and say, ‘good luck, Paul, we understand’; others make outrageous comments,” his lawyer, George Elias, said.
“There’s a herd of reporters outside and in the courtroom. If this was someone else, someone unknown, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Elias said Kent had “punished himself with alcohol” after being charged, and then cleared, of a domestic violence offence.
Further, Elias said, Kent’s employer News Corp had given him “no help” during the troubled time.
Kent has repeatedly denounced NRL stars for talking about mental health problems in times of crisis.
“Now all the dickheads in the world simply claim their dickhead behaviour is a mental welfare issue and it immediately makes them no longer accountable for their dickhead actions,” Kent wrote in one newspaper column.
In another, he called out the “world of snowflakes” and “mental health warriors”.
Price did not convict Kent, ordering him instead to be released on a two-year good behaviour bond.
He will remain in treatment for his mental health problems, his lawyer assured the court.
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