NRL player awarded $100,000 as judge savages police
NRL star Curtis Scott has been awarded more than $100,000 in legal costs after a magistrate said he "might have been safer" wandering drunkenly onto the road rather than being pepper-sprayed and tasered by police.
The Canberra Raiders centre was originally charged with seven offences including two for assaulting a police officer following Australia Day celebrations in Sydney, but all charges were either dropped or dismissed.
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"I genuinely think Mr Scott might have been safer if he had wandered onto the roadway and been hit by a car," magistrate Jennifer Giles said at Downing Centre Local Court on Friday.
"He would at least have still had the free use of his hands, and being upright, would have had got an ambulance much more quickly. He wouldn't have been blinded for 20 minutes, and wouldn't have been electrocuted (sic) while lying handcuffed on the ground.
"That is an absurd analogy, I know. But try to watch the body-cam footage without flinching. And try to remember you're not watching gratuitous violence off the dark web."
Police alleged they were alerted when Scott was seen acting erratically on Regent Street at Paddington before finding him asleep near Driver Avenue at Moore Park in the early hours of January 27.
He was accused of assaulting a female constable and male senior constable before being tasered, arrested and taken to Surry Hills Police Station.
In the hours leading up to the incident, Scott posted two social media videos of himself partying with Raiders teammates at The Ivy nightclub in the Sydney CBD.
Magistrate horrified by Curtis Scott arrest footage
Earlier this month Ms Giles said she did not have the "stomach" to watch the 22-year-old footballer being tasered a third time after two separate videos showed Scott being pepper-sprayed and tasered after he was handcuffed.
The video shows Scott asleep at Sydney's Moore Park in the early hours of January 27 when police handcuffed him and asked him more than 20 times to get up.
A drunk and disorientated Scott can be heard saying "I'm getting dressed" before repeating that he has "done nothing wrong".
Trying but failing to drag him onto his feet police administer pepper spray into his face which causes him to moan and yell he is "f***ing dying". He swats police away with his hands in cuffs.
Scott's lawyer Sam Macedone said the tasering that followed was inappropriate and unwarranted after Scott followed officers' instruction not to resist arrest and merely "raised his voice".
Mr Macedone said Scott lost a Nike sponsorship as a result of the charges, while the "NRL came down so hard on him" he was worried he would lose his career.
Earlier in September Ms Giles dismissed the remaining matters, saying Scott had already experienced enough punishment and been made an example of.
She said the experience had taken its toll on the NRL player who has since remained sober for more than five months, and that he was unlikely to repeat similar behaviour.
Ms Giles on Friday awarded Mr Scott, who was not present in court, a total of $100,792 in legal costs.
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