Curtis Scott, a former NFL player, was unsuccessful in his appeal to overturn convictions for threatening and abusing Tay-Leiha Clark, a long jumper.
Judge Alister Abadee dismissed Scott’s attorneys’ attempts to cast doubt on Clark’s testimony at a hearing on Thursday at Sydney’s Downing Center District Court.
The connection between the two was “punctuated by emotional abuse… born of jealousy,” Judge Abadee admitted to the court.
He discovered that Clark’s Instagram posts, his anxieties that she would leave him, and his conviction that she was the cause of his problems all contributed to Scott’s jealousy.
Scott, 25, who appeared in court, looked extremely upset by Judge Abadee’s conclusions. He turned at one point and whispered to his supporters, but the judge cautioned him not to interrupt.
Scott was convicted guilty of common assault, assault causing serious bodily harm, and intimidation last year.
He received a $1400 fine and a 12-month community corrections order.
The punishment takes into account Scott’s incapacity to continue playing premier rugby league once the allegations surfaced in 2021 and the termination of his NRL contract.
The former Melbourne Storm and Canberra Raiders center acknowledges he and Clark had a “turbulent” relationship, but he insists he never physically assaulted or threatened to murder her.
Scott’s attorneys argued, among other things, that Clark’s evidence had reliability and consistency issues that should have been taken into consideration at the trial while appealing the verdicts.
Clark had inflated claims that Scott had mistreated her on a daily basis while they were sharing a Melbourne home with Storm teammates Scott Drinkwater and Brandon Smith, Judge Abadee did find.
He added that he did not give “much weight” to that, citing the possibility that Clark, a young adult at the time, exaggerated what had happened out of concern for her safety.
The court heard that Clark waited around two and a half years after the previous incident before calling the police, in part because she was worried about Scott’s safety.
In the initial court proceeding, Magistrate Daniel Covington concluded that during an incident in 2018 at Clark’s parents’ Sylvania house in southern Sydney, Scott had put his hand on her neck and “launched” her over a lounge and into a wall.
Clark was said to have grazes and an egg-sized bump on her head.
The former center “charged” at Clark in another incident that happened while the two were vacationing on the NSW south coast, knocking her to the ground.
Scott’s acts were labeled “self-pitying” and “vengeful” by Judge Abdee.
“In a final act of elevated emotional abuse, he threatened the complainant with death,” he claimed.
The threat was sincere because “a reasonable person would have felt was unable to let go of the relationship.”
