In a development that has sent waves of indignation through the genteel drawing rooms of legal experts across the United Kingdom, the man hailed as Australia’s answer to Hercules on a surfboard has now been cast as a villain of Shakespearean proportions. Yes, my gin-soaked friends, the Bondi Beach hero who wrestled a shark with his bare hands or saved a dozen toddlers from a rip tide – or whatever the sunburnt mythmakers are peddling this week – has pleaded not guilty to assault. The case is now being observed with the kind of rapt, voyeuristic intensity usually reserved for a royal divorce or a particularly feisty episode of ‘Strictly Come Dancing.
’ From the hallowed chambers of the Old Bailey to the damp, carpeted offices of provincial law firms, Britain’s legal establishment is glued to this courtroom drama like moths to a flaming barbie. The accused, whose tan lines are presumably a matter of public record, stands accused of ‘assault occasioning actual bodily harm’ against a man who may or may not have looked at his girlfriend sideways. The details, as they ooze through the cracks of press releases, are murkier than a pint of London porter.
Was it a case of a hero’s ego gone rogue? A tragic misunderstanding in the frothy sea of modern masculinity? Or simply a glorious example of Australia’s beloved ‘mateship’ getting a bit too matey?
The court will decide. But for now, the satellite links are hot, the pundits are prepped, and your humble correspondent is already on his third miniatures of lukewarm gin from a duty-free bottle he claims is for ‘medicinal purposes.’ Because in a world where heroes fall and lawyers feast, the only sane response is to drink the news until it stops making sense.
I shall be watching from a bar stool in a pub that still sells pickled eggs and pretending to understand Australian accents. Stay tuned for more dispatches from the edge of sanity.
