Two police officers deny attacking Canberra Raiders NRL player Tom Starling during a wild brawl.
Defence lawyer Warwick Anderson told Gosford Local Court on Thursday Senior Constable Steven Lockwood Brown, 49, and Sergeant Evan Huw Prowse, 37, will plead not guilty to assaulting Starling.
The two officers, charged after an investigation by the NSW Professional Standard Command, are accused of punching Starling in the face during the brawl at the Shady Palms restaurant at Kincumber on the NSW Central Coast.
Starling, 25, was initially charged with assaulting four police officers, including Brown and Prowse, but the charges were later dropped after CCTV footage of the incident was reviewed.
The Raiders hooker later claimed that if it wasn’t for the CCTV footage he would be behind bars.
Magistrate Jennifer Price on Thursday agreed to adjourn the case against the two officers, who were not in court, to May 2.
The officers have each been charged with one count of assaulting Tom Starling between 11.01pm and 11.03pm on December 5, 2020, while Prowse is facing an additional charge of assaulting Starling’s brother Jackson.
Ms Price ordered the police brief of evidence be handed to the officers by April 4.
Outside court, Mr Anderson said the officers would be vigorously defending the charges.
The defence lawyer said being a police officer was a very stressful job and the two officers only went to Shady Palms to help people.
He said police officers had to deal with people who were often drunk or violent and had to “run towards things most people run away from”.
Mr Warwick acknowledged the two officers had seen parts of the CCTV footage from Shady Palms but would wait to see what was in the police brief of evidence.
Both officers have been excused from attending court on May 2 because they are legally represented.
Starling’s lawyer Samar Singh-Panwar told a previous court hearing the footballer had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder following the incident.
The Starling family is reportedly seeking up to $1 million in damages from NSW police.
Starling and his brothers Josh, 27, and Jackson, 22, had been out celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday when the brawl broke out with security guards and police at Shady Palms.
Security guard Khan Morris was accused of starting the brawl by calling Starling’s mother a “f***ing slut” which he denied.
Morris was later charged with assaulting Starling’s father David and will face a hearing later this year.
A Sydney magistrate found Tom and Jackson Starling not guilty in February 2023 of resisting or hindering police in the execution of their duty during the Shady Palms brawl and Josh not guilty of two counts of assaulting police.
Josh Starling was found guilty of resisting police and assaulting Morris but no conviction was recorded and he was placed on two 18-month good behaviour bonds.
Tom and Josh Starling were back in court in April to plead guilty to one count of stalking/intimidating Morris after an incident at Terrigal in October 2021. Charges of threatening a witness and behaving in an offensive manner were withdrawn and dismissed.
The two brothers had called out “f*** you” to Morris and gestured for him to come outside when standing across the road after being refused entry to the Mumbo Jumbos bar at Terrigal because of number limits.
Ms Price dismissed the charge against Tom Starling on mental health grounds after accepting he had PTSD and discharged him into the care of a psychologist.
She said he would have to attend all appointments with the psychologist and engage in any recommended treatment.
Josh Starling was given a two-year conditional release order without conviction.
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