Jack Wighton (left) and Latrell Mitchell arrive at court for the start of their hearing on Monday. Photos: Albert McKnight.
One of the two NRL stars allegedly spotted fighting during birthday celebrations apparently yelled “lock me up with him” when police were arresting the second, a court heard.
Cousins Latrell Mitchell and Jack Wighton faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Monday (30 October) for the start of a hearing to contest their charges over the alleged incident in the early hours of 5 February 2023.
The pair were in a group of rugby league players who had been out celebrating Wighton’s 30th birthday in the nightclub Fiction in Civic when police officers entered.
They allegedly saw Wighton pushing another man while looking “upset and angry” with clenched fists, so they took him outside and gave him a direction to leave the area, prosecutor Sam Bargwanna said.
He walked away but then began pushing, shoving and grappling with Mitchell on the street, the prosecutor alleged.
The pair were captured on closed-circuit television vision footage, shown to the court, slowly pushing each other back and forth while others tried to intervene.
Mr Bargwanna alleged bystanders separated them and Wighton walked away but was followed by Mitchell, who then shoved another person.
CCTV then showed numerous police officers swarming Mitchell on Bunda Street to arrest him. Meanwhile, Wighton was nearby and was allegedly reminded by officers he was subject to an exclusion direction, but he told them something like, “Lock me up with him, you’re f-wits”.
Barrister Jack Pappas, appearing for Mitchell, argued much of the evidence should not be admitted by the court.
“This case, your honour, is about power. It’s about the power of police to act arbitrarily, oppressively and violently because they are, as Paul Kelly and Kev Carmody would say, ‘fat with money and muscle’,” he said.
There was no proper basis to demand Wighton leave the club, where they had been “quietly celebrating”, Mr Pappas argued, adding the claim he’d been upset with clenched fists was a “fabrication”.
The barrister said his client had been “set upon” by a large number of police officers after “an insignificant interaction” with his cousin.
Mitchell had been “completely passive” during his arrest but had been forcefully pushed into the gutter, had an officer’s knee on his back and started making “painful cries”, Mr Pappas said.
“I’ve done nothing wrong but be a Blackfella in Australia,” Mitchell cried.
“Can you please tell me what’s happening?”
Bystanders had apparently been filming the arrest, and when Mitchell saw them, he yelled at them to “share it”.
Steven Boland, the barrister for Wighton, said what happened was a cascading series of improprieties and illegalities that ultimately ended in Mitchell’s brutal and degrading arrest.
Mitchell had been lying face down on the concrete, screaming, was “horribly distressed” and was reduced to a “weakened mess”, he said, while Wighton had been pleading with the officers not to hurt him.
Mr Boland said there was “never a punch thrown” during the alleged fight, and it had only been described as pushing and shoving with no injuries.
“On any view, this is well short of the conflict that this court would regularly deal with,” he said.
He questioned if the exclusion direction to his client had been made lawfully, if he had indeed breached the direction, and if he had done so, then whether he had a reasonable excuse.
He argued Wighton hadn’t been given any proper reason why he needed to leave the city.
Wighton, a former Canberra Raider now signed with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, was charged with fighting in a public place and failing to comply with an exclusion direction.
Mitchell, also a Rabbitoh, was also charged with fighting in a public place, as well as affray and resisting a territory public official.
Both pleaded not guilty. The hearing is expected to run for about three days.
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