Two AFL premiership stars have denied being \u201dphysically present\u201d at an alleged Sorrento Boxing Day brawl, a court has been told.<\/p>\n
Richmond midfielder Dion Prestia and Melbourne defender Steven May appeared at the Dromana Magistrates Court on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The pair were represented by lawyer Tony Hargreaves, who requested the matter be adjourned in order to give the prosecution time to consider submissions he\u2019d made.<\/p>\n
Mr Hargreaves said he had sent detailed written submissions to police about \u201cwhy charges should be withdrawn\u201d and was told they needed some time. <\/p>\n
He said neither Mr Prestia nor Mr May \u201cwere physically present or physically involved (in alleged incident)\u201d. <\/p>\n
Prosecutor Alex Turner supported Mr Hargreaves request to adjourn the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll come to be in a position either way, whether proceeding or withdrawing, by the 20th of February,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The presiding magistrate accepted Mr Hargreaves\u2019 request and adjourned the matter until February 20.<\/p>\n
Police allege two groups of men were involved in an altercation about 2am on Point Nepean Rd, Sorrento on December 27, 2024. <\/p>\n
Two men were taken to hospital with non life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n
Police said they interviewed three men in May, 2025 as part of their investigation.<\/p>\n
Mr Prestia was charged on summons with recklessly causing serious injury and Mr May was charged on summons with affray, the Herald Sun reported in October.<\/p>\n
Both men continue to maintain their innocence.<\/p>\n
In a statement issued by Richmond last year, Mr Prestia said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI have today been charged with the offence of recklessly causing serious injury as a result of an altercation that apparently took place on Boxing Day 2024 at Sorrento.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not involved in the fight. I was not even physically present when it apparently took place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI deny that I am guilty of these offences and will strenuously defend these charges.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Demon\u2019s Mr May has not commented publicly, however a statement from the club said they will \u201ccontinue to support Steven through this process\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteven has advised the club that he was not involved in the alleged incident and will strongly defend the charge in court,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
Both men appeared before the court on Thursday via video link. <\/p>\n
Mr May is a two-time All-Australian, a premiership player, and previously served as co-captain of the Gold Coast Suns. <\/p>\n
The Tiger\u2019s Mr Prestia has won three premierships and was named part of the all-Australian Squad in 2019.<\/p>\n
The men will appear at Frankston Magistrates Court February 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two AFL premiership stars have denied being \u201dphysically present\u201d at an alleged Sorrento Boxing Day brawl, a court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,185009,85],"class_list":["post-430186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-newswire-court","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}