Sorry to post and run, but it’s a busy day today. Short video of the Symonds-Streaker confrontation (11 secs):
Longer video here with bemused commentators.
I’m impressed that the shoulder-charge was textbook in execution for a man who only trains recreationally with the League. The streaker is most unlikely to have any permanent injury to anything more than his pride. Still, was Symonds’ response appropriate to the trespassing nuisance, or was it indefensible thuggery?
Bah, humbug! Enough already with all the cricket stories this year!
Surely there are more important issues to discuss? Let’s go take a look at “the most credible opinion page in the country“. Talking of arses…!
If the stupid and apparently very drunk streaker was not hurt, it was appropriate and probably the quickest way to get rid of him. If the streaker was hurt physically, it was inappropriate and the streaker will probably sue. I seem to recollect a streaker did that with a cricketer once and won.He pobably wasn’t hurt, because as a rule fall-down drunks don’t usually hurt themselves that much, unless they get in a fight (was this a fight?), fall in front of or drive a car.Do they?
Could be worse, tigtog.
hero.
Loved it. Hero for sure.
Self defence. The guy was coming right at him! Beautifully done though.
You see, this is what happens when you mix with NRL players. Not content with causing poor, defenceless thugs to fire shots at them in Kings Cross, the insidious influence of NRL has spread to cricket.
I demand a Rudd committee on this evil that pervades our glorious country!
i guess these days u never know what they guys intentions may be, he was running straight for him so understandable re teh take down……
virtualat - I don’t think he had any concealed weapons
seriously, though (1) it’s fair enough. if you get pissed and naked and run onto the field, a little shoulder charge is the least you have coming. (2) enough! bring on the footy season. come on the cowboys!
(can’t believe THIS will be the reason I make my first post on LP, but anyway…)
I was at the cricket last night. Great game and the right team won. Anyway, there were actually TWO streakers during the match. One of which was just your happy naked guy, a pleasant throwback to the 80s. The other though - this guy - was not. He ran VERY close to Harbhajan Singh, threatening him and giving him the finger, then ran at Symonds. In that position, you’d have to be thinking to defend yourself.
Ironic that Harbhajan was probably watching the crunch, after being threatened, thinking “Hmm, for once I’m in agreement with Symonds…”
Hero.
Vigilante justice in Brisbane, the last frontier.
If Symonds is pinged, it’d be un-Australian not to chip in to pay the fine.
The streaker Symonds tackled did have a rather nice bottom though.
Assault is assault is assault.
Unless, apparently you are a genuine Aussie sporting hero©.
In which case the normal laws governing the rest of society don’t appear to apply.
Greg Chappell was the one that had a spot of trouble with streakers. I was listening to ABC radio last night when they were talking about it.
In New Zealand, a streaker was on the field when Chappell offered to shake his hand. As the guy came up, he had his backside met by Chappell’s bat, and consequently sued him. There was no conviction though, apparently…
“Still, was Symonds’ response appropriate to the trespassing nuisance, or was it indefensible thuggery?”
Hmmm … nice false dichotomy :-).
surely it’s some kind of citizen’s arrest?
You’re right adrian, it’s a double standard. If you or I were playing international cricket in front of a sold out crowd and we shoulder-charged a drunk naked man running at one of us, it’d be totally different.
Well spotted, Ken. I didn’t have time earlier for a better diagramming of the decision tree.
Honestly, I think it’s dead on borderline. This streaker was aggressive, as noted above in comparison to another guy who was just having a fine old silly time, and taking him down stopped his potential for further aggression dead cold. But just exactly how high was that potential?
Also, I’m sure that Symonds has also been practising his sidestep with the League players, so why not just do that? The police were chasing the guy and would have caught him soon enough.
Symonds drew a line in the sand, er, turf.
He is doing a job out there, and if someone wants to enter his workplace and threaten his life and limb, then the intruder takes on the risk.
Fine people whatever you like, Symonds has with one decision ended the likelihood that any streaker will go near him again.
I call bullshit on the self defence claim, since the streaker isn’t running directly at Symonds, and if even if he was, the defensive action needs to be in proportional to the threat. A naked man being pursued by at least seven cops hardly constitutes a serious threat to anyone.
No idea what your point is Liam.
Symonds has no right to enforce the crime of trespass. Even a property owner is strictly limited in the range of action s/he can take against an interloper. Technically, Symonds may be guilty of assault.
However, Symonds may have a tort action against the streaker. The streaker may have negligently caused mental shock to Symonds, occasioning material damage to his ability to make a living as a prpofessional cricketer. For it would be easy to establish that the streaker owed a duty of care to Symonds not to invade the playing area in a state of nakedness.
Moreover, it is foreseeable that the streaker was impeding Symonds’ ability to make a living as a professional cricketer.
On the Chappell incident (#14) apparently Chappell had reached 100 and the guy went to shake his hand, having run out there already when he reached 50. Chappell took his hand and administered 5 paddles to his backside or thereabouts. The streaker had photographs taken and sued and won, but no conviction was recorded. That was according to Kerry O’Keefe, who was there. I recall that Chappell got out soon after.
There was another incident when Terry Alderman chased a streaker and did a rugby tackle, hurt his own shoulder and was out of the game for some time.
I understand Symonds tried out for the Broncos and unlike Alderman showed he knew how to tackle.
The ABC guys were down on Symonds, saying it was assault. The relevant rule says you can’t assault other players, officials or spectators on pain of suspension for 5 test matches, 10 one-dayers up to a life-time ban.
Having watched the video, I’m with Symonds. I believe the officialdom called it a “body check” and no action is to be taken. Very sensible.
The guy wasn’t too drunk, the way he ran. Peter Roebuck, who qualified as a lawyer said you can see what the streaker did, but there is no way you can know what he intended.
What Symonds did was a mild form of shoulder charge, quite legitimate as a tackling technique in rugby league.
yar bollocks. Too many petty lawyers in society if you think that’s the way it works. make a nuisance of yourself running around drunk and naked in plenty of places, you’ll get what’s coming to you.
…or even ‘in proportion to the threat’…
Anyway, Katz if you are not a lawyer you should be, such is your ability to construct an semi-coherent argument from gossamer thin threads of logic.
The really great bit about this story are the charges the streaker has been copped with. The more obvious and absurd…”wilful and obscene exposure”…but also… “interfering with a person playing sport”.
Yes folks, this a law that needs to be extended, coz we live in ’stralya. Making it an offence to stand in front of the tele when somebody is WATCHING sport, would be a good start; with follow up penalties for malicious taking control of a remote, while somebody (patriotic) is VIEWING said favourite sport.
Well the police aren’t pressing charges.
Can’t say fairer than that.
Adrian, my point is that non-sportspeople are very unlikely to ever be in the same circumstances as Symonds was, so to say that he’s the beneficiary of double-standards is wrong. You might as well say there’s a double standard because people who don’t drive cars never get arrested for drink-driving. If he’d punched someone in a nightclub, that’d be different, because hell, anyone can do that.
As to proportionality, pitch invaders have a history of being dangerous. Ask Monica Seles.
The streaker was charged with:
‘you’ll get what’s coming to you.’
And bollocks to you. What a crap argument.
Who decides ‘what’s coming to you’? I suppose it doesn’t really matter if the person doing the deciding is a genuine Aussie sporting hero. I dare say many additudes would be different if it was an Indian player committing the assault.
Two male streakers at the cricket? Pfft.
Why can’t cricket produce streakers like this?
That sentence could use a comma.
Well Liam, just because non-sportspeople may not find themselves in precisely the same circumstances, the same legal priniples apply, regardless of the exact context.
Drink driving is a false analogy because it is limited to a particular set of circumstances (driving a car), wheras assault can aoccur in an virtually limitless range of circumstances.
I thought your point must have been a bit more substantial than that.
d’oh, I meant of course the sentence quoted by Brian at #27. A pretty lame joke but I had better clarify before someone feels offended.
Next time you’re playing a game of cricket and someone you don’t know takes their pants off and runs at you, adrian, let me know how you go.
I think that was uncalled for by Symonds. It was not his job to do that. Whatsmore, sometimes the cricket needs a bit of comedy like a streaker running on to the ground.
… and seeing the streaker getting pwned like that on national TV is comedy gold.
We also had a moment of universal joy (if the youtube edit I watch is legitimate) where Indian players high-fived Symonds response. CA are happy, the cops are happy, Terry O’Gorman’s happy, it seems that aside from Adrian, we have a substantial majority in agreement.
I love ’strayla at times like this.
I LOL’d, Laura.
Well Liam, if the particular idiot is being pursued by 7-10 cops I would delicately move to one side to avoid contact with the individual. Anyway, said idiot wasn’t running at Symonds, and in fact tried to change direction away from him as he saw that Symonds was moving to come into contact with him.
via collins, don’t forget the streaker himself, who must now be regarded by his mates as the greatest hero in the history of the world.
via collins I’m not so unhappy, particular after Laura’s post, just highlighting what I see as a reasonably double standard that exists where our glorious sporting heroes are involved.
He (the streaker) decides what’s coming to him, by making a public nuisance of himself.
Doubtless some attitudes would be different had it been an Indian doing the bump. So they’re racist/nationalist. I’m not.
You’re promoting a dangerously litigious society where everyone’s a chancer seeking to sue for the consequences of their own actions.
it’s not like Symonds slugged him one, that would have been assault.
It’s worth noting that while people are calling this a “shoulder charge”, Symonds didn’t actually charge at Mr Nude, but rather shouldered up to him when he got too close. Totally self defence and appropriate level of force.
Remember, Symonds was holding a bat, and if he felt really challenged he could have hit the guy for six, metaphorically and perhaps even physically.
tom
Not the action of a hero, just a cheap easy shot. When a bouncer took a cheap easy shot at David Hookes who cheered?
The streaker has been fined $1500 but had no conviction recorded.
“Assault is assault is assault.
Unless, apparently you are a genuine Aussie sporting hero©.
In which case the normal laws governing the rest of society don’t appear to apply.
”
What meaningless drivel. If this was true everyone who plays rugby, soccer and Aussie rules in the country would be suing each other every week.
Shoulder charges are a regular part of a lot of sports, you don’t have to sign any form of disclaimer to play sports where they are legal, so in effect it is not an assault.
The precedence for this is already set - Leigh Matthews (AFL player) was charged with assault for deliberately punching an opposition player in the 80’s. No charges have ever been laid on a player for bumping.
If shoulder charging was assault then our courts would never do anything else.
He should have been capsicum sprayed, or tasered or something. Where’s Steve from the Pub when you need him?
By the looks of the video, he should have been at least no-balled.
Um, something something full toss…
Just glad to see Symonds didn’t go for the pull shot.
I don’t know about you, but I saw a googly.
Looked to have been on track for middle stump.
The guy in question thinks getting knocked down nekkid was teh awesome Guilty as (shoulder-) charged? A little bit of a conversation-killer, I would have thought - no harm done except to our friend’s bank balance.
But honestly people, do we really think that someone who drinks a skinful, gets nekkid and charges onto a field hasn’t invited some minor trouble into their life? Funny as it was, it’s probably not an activity you can pursue without expecting to have your progress checked, if indeed you’re in a position to form expectations.
Let’s think about this apart from what we might feel about Andy Symonds, sportspeople in general etc… Let’s think about how having his progress halted at that moment was probably beneficial to the streaker. I think this is getting made into a HUGE deal and I’m not sure why.
Are there some of us on the left who can’t maintain their sense of balance when it comes to paragons of normative masculinity?
With a middle stump like that, he might have bowled a maiden over.
*resists temptation to quote until-now-long-forgotten lines from Still the Twelfth Man*
Perhaps “the streak” should have the last word:
“Are there some of us on the left who can’t maintain their sense of balance when it comes to paragons of normative masculinity?”
So who’s the ‘paragon’, the streaker or Symonds?
IMHO you’re all missing the point. Nobody’s arguing that the streaker should have brought assault charges and whether he deserved the shoulder charge is irrelevant.
The point is that under Australian law what Symonds did constitutes assault, with a possible mitigating factor of self-defence. If it was an unknown member of the community commiting the same act, obviously in different circumstances, he would have a case to answer. But because it’s a Aussie hero involved, people are willing to make exceptions, and I don’t really understand why. After all a yobbo is a yobbo, and Symonds acted like a yobbo, commiting a fairly violent assault that was out of proportion to the threat imposed.
To those of you willing to excuse such behaviour, imagine if the streaker had been seriously injured, which was a distinct possibility, given the circumstances. Would you still be saying he got what he deserved.
Haha! Both, I suppose, each in his own special way, but you’re right, it’s unclear in the passage that I was actually referring to Symonds.
Adrian I think it’s the circumstances, rather than Andy Symonds status, that people are suggesting completely obviate any question of assault.
I don’t think it’s tenable to argue that sports stars get an easy run when they play up. Jarrod Hayne is in the poo at the moment because someone else shot at him! Every minor infraction of any high-profile sportsperson occasions a media frenzy. If there’s any double standard in Australian life, it’s the fact that journos climb on their high horse when sportspeople do things that journos, and other young men, get up to every week.
I’m no lawyer, so I won’t comment on whether or not the shoulder charge constitutes assault, but if a court threw any putative charge here out, it wouldn’t be because they’re, like, totally into cricket, but because under the circumstances, Symonds was within his rights to do what he did.
The streaker is capable of seeing the common sense in all this. why aren’t you?
The context is different, which is why no one involved thinks it is assault.
Imagine if the streaker had have been full of poisonous ants and when Symonds charged him he exploded and Symonds was ripped to shreds by ants with only his bleached bones remaining, and by stopping the streaker in his tracks he’d saved the nation from antpocalypse allowing the stadium to be evacuated and nuked. What about that, huh?
I love ’strayla even more.
Within a 24 hrs period, the streaker sees it for what it is, the perp and the victim both waste no-one’s time.
A few blog commenters in case of kickers twisticus, and onwards life goes, nothing to see here, move along in orderly fashion. And please take care with yer punctuation.
Well your first point is correct. Under Australian law what Symonds did constitutes assault.
The question is whether it was a lawful assault. If it was done in self-defence then it is a lawful assault. Reasonable self-defence is a complete defence, not a mitigating factor, under Australian law.
If the self-defence was excessive then that that would be a mitigating factor.
Was the self-defence reasonable? Well the streaker was, it appears, running at Symonds. Symonds had no idea, and had no way of knowing, what the streaker’s intentions were but could have reasonably concluded that they might include an assault on Symonds (and since you are preciously using the word assault, that could include any uninvited touching of Symonds’ body such as ruffling his hair, or even touching his arm as he ran past and even an action which creates an apprehension in Symond;s mind that he was being threatened with assault, whatever the streaker’s actual intentions were) against which Symonds was perfectly entitled under Australian law to take reasonable steps to defend himself and so he took what has to be seen as a most reasonable step to avoid that possible assault in, rather than striking at his perceived assailant, placing his shoulder forward in a most defensive way to fend off the perceived threatened assault. His was a model of restraint which we should all remember and, should the occasion arise, emulate.
I am sure that that is the way a jury would see it. And, as a magistrate must apply the standards of a jury, that’s the way a magistrate would see it too under Australian law.
Andrew Symonds provides an example for us all should we ever find ourselves playing cricket in front of a large number of people and are then suddenly confronted by a naked and presumably drunken person charging at us, possibly threatening us with assault. “Use the shoulder” must be our watchword.
S-T-R
A-Y-A
STRAYA!
LMAO. It’s certainly mine from here on in. Indeed, I’m tempted to put it on a t-shirt.
This, friends, is why Symonds gets the big bucks.
Adrian, I’m not hung up about exceptions being made for sporting heroes, but I’d offer you some support, in spite of what I said at #22.
The streaker twisted his body away from Symonds to squeeze past him just before contact, and Symonds took a small step to effect the body check. He could have and probably should have stepped the other way.
The ABC commentators were emphasising that the players had been told to stay well clear of any streakers. The rule they read out was quite clear about not assaulting players, officials or spectators.
You’re right, the whole thing could have turned sour if the streaker had been seriously hurt.
Cricket Australia has fully supported Symonds:
I have a suspicion that they took this line in part because they didn’t want to piss Symonds off further. He might just retire and concentrate on playing 20/20 with the Indians. Robert Craddock on local radio (he was talking about the season rather than this incident) said the Australian players were very disappointed they didn’t get better support from their employer over the Singh incident.
BTW the still in the story I linked to shows Symonds using an elbow rather than the shoulder. Not a good look. You could get sent off for that in rugby league.
If thats an assault under Australian Law then the law is an ass.
Id Symonds did that to someone on the street, it might be fair enough, (possibly). If you think that was an assault next time you bumb into someone getting out of a train station fall over, you might get victim of crime compensation
But really I can’t believe we are even having this discussion.
Jules, as I understand it, the law on assault (and nearly everything else) goes to mens rea and intent (IANAL).
If one bumps into someone at the train station and they fall over, there is no intent to harm or even intent to touch. If one steps in front of someone to deliberately effect body contact, there is intent to touch at the very least, and any uninvited touch is an assault.
In this case, the streaker has no animosity and no intent to press charges, but that’s purely the luck of the draw.
if someone wants to enter his workplace and threaten his life and limb
Oh, please.
Iis it true that any uninvited contact could be assault? I’m interested because (and this is off-topic) in Melbourne you smetimes see ‘authorised officers’ on public transport grab hold of people whilst checking their tickets. I’ve wondered if that constitutes assault.
It happened to me once and I was quite shocked, because I was actually off the tram and on the stop when I was grabbed. I thought it was totally weird.
“Oh, please”
I thought about indicating irony Helen, but I keep finding the idea of anyone constituting a bodily threat to Andrew Symonds delicious.
Fine @ 67,
“authorised officers” recognised as such by the relevant government’s registration systems for security guards and police officers) have a “reasonable restraint” protection against assault charges. I believe there’s also a “reasonable restraint” protection against assault charges in cases of citizen’s arrests, although the whole citizen’s arrest concept is quite variable across jurisdictions.
Edited to add: it wouldn’t surprise me a bit though if such “authorised officers” often exceed their mandate in terms of grabbing people peremptorily and arbitrarily, secure in the knowledge that most people will be too shocked and unaware of the law to charge them for assault in cases where that would be an appropriate charge.
Couldn’t agree more via collins
Tigtog. Yes, when I told the ‘authorised officer’ , a terminology I just love, that he was in danger of assaulting me, he backed off quickly. But, I’ve seen these guys behave very badly, at times.
Seriously, I nudist was going to happen.