Raging Rooster in anger rehab
Jacquelin Magnay and Geesche Jacobsen | March 11, 2009
THE Roosters forward Anthony Cherrington is undertaking anger management classes after admitting to a domestic violence assault, including an approach with a knife, on his girlfriend.
In the latest assault drama to envelop the National Rugby League, Cherrington will be sentenced by the courts later this month. The Roosters are awaiting the judicial decision before imposing their own penalty. The NRL is also monitoring the case.
Elsewhere the former Canberra star Todd Carney has been banned from entering the Goulburn local government area for 12 months and handed a suspended 12-month jail sentence after he pleaded guilty to two malicious damage charges in Goulburn Local Court yesterday.
Cherrington, 20, has pleaded guilty to the assault in which he struck Monique Mears repeatedly in the face and on her body, before approaching her with a knife, last year. Ten days later as the couple argued, he smashed her sunglasses, mobile phone and both car mirrors.
According to court documents, last November Ms Mears was preparing to leave him and was packing her belongings in the Rosebery home they had shared for the four-month relationship, when he returned home.
He asked her to stay, and blocked the door. As she ran past him, he grabbed her wrist and hit her in the lower back, left face, head and right ear with an open hand.
"It takes a strong guy to hit a woman," she told him, upon which he kicked her leg. The attack left her bruised with a swollen right ear and left side of her face.
As she tried to leave, he came back carrying a knife with a 15-centimetre blade. She tried to barricade the door with the bed, but he pushed it open.
His flatmate, nicknamed "sh*tty", tried to calm him.
"Do you want me to kill myself?" Cherrington asked Ms Mears and turned the knife against his stomach. She walked towards him, pleading, "No, don't" and grabbed the knife.
He threatened to "knock you out" if she left the house, but she left soon after.
In early December Ms Mears was driving Cherrington to a meeting, when an argument started and she reaffirmed she wanted to break off the relationship. He called her "s**t" and "whore", then smashed her sunglasses, snapped her mobile phone in two, threw a pair of new shoes out of the car, emptied her handbag onto the road and kicked the side mirrors of her father's car.
Cherrington later paid Ms Mears $3000 for damage to her property.
He is obtaining a psychological report to be presented at sentencing on his 21st birthday later this month.
The Roosters' chief executive, Steve Noyce, said police had told the club they had been impressed with Cherrington's remorse, his guilty plea given at the first opportunity and his commitment to counselling and anger management.
Mr Noyce said Cherrington was "very, very sorry" and noted that the player had done everything asked of him in relation to dealing with his personal issues.
Another Rooster, Setaimata Sa, is due back in court next month after appealing against his conviction and sentence of 250 hours' community service for fracturing a man's skull in a pub brawl more than 12 months ago.
