Former NRL player Nathan Merritt would have made people \u201cfear for their safety\u201d during a brawl outside a Sydney sports bar that left him bloodied and knocked to the ground, court documents have revealed.<\/p>\n
The former South Sydney player was at the Madison Hotel in Surry Hills with a group of friends early the morning of February 16 last year when an altercation erupted between him and a group of unknown men. <\/p>\n
Mr Merritt was left bleeding from the head and mouth with a ripped shirt following the brawl. <\/p>\n
A regular person would have \u201cfeared for their safety\u201d as the incident unfolded, court documents tendered to the court and seen by NewsWire state.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Mr Merritt) did use unlawful violence towards unknown victim by conduct such that a person of reasonable firmness, if present at the scene, would have feared for their safety,\u201d they state.<\/p>\n
The fight was sparked after security at the sports bar tried to remove an unknown man from the venue about 6am, the statement of agreed facts state.<\/p>\n
The man instigated a physical altercation with a group unknown to Mr Merritt on Chalmers and Devonshire St before appearing to set his sights on Mr Merritt about 15 minutes later, gesturing \u201caggressively\u201d at the former Rabbitohs player.<\/p>\n
He managed to break free from the hold of security guards and advanced towards Mr Merritt, who had also begun to run at the man.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, (Mr Merritt) is captured running towards the unknown male,\u201d the documents state.<\/p>\n
Mr Merritt managed to throw a punch before he was knocked to the ground outside the Royal Exhibition Hotel.<\/p>\n
His shirt was torn by a second unknown man who proceeded to punch him in the head.<\/p>\n
Mr Merritt is captured on video going back up to the two men, with the second one again punching him in the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cCCTV shows (Mr Merritt) at this point, bleeding from his forehead and mouth, and his T-shirt ripped,\u201d documents state.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecurity continues pushing away the unknown males.\u201d<\/p>\n
A third man also landed a punch to Mr Merritt\u2019s face before security finally managed to break up the parties.<\/p>\n
Mr Merritt walked over to Prince Alfred Park afterwards where he was stopped by police patrolling the area, who issued him and a few witnesses who had walked over with him an intoxicated move on direction, which he complied with.<\/p>\n
He was arrested and cautioned at Mascot Police Station two days later when police phoned him and asked him to present himself to the station. <\/p>\n
Mr Merritt has pleaded guilty to one count of affray. <\/p>\n
The matter is next due before the Downing Centre Local Court on February 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NRL player Nathan Merritt would have made people \u201cfear for their safety\u201d during a brawl outside a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[226210,64,63,689,73397,138533,226217,226208,226209,226214,761,762,673,185009,158,677,226212,111191,85,211259,226207,117390,670,226216,226215,226213,226211],"class_list":["post-434723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-alfred-park","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-court-documents","tag-court-documents-state","tag-downing-centre-local-court","tag-madison-hotel","tag-mascot-police-station","tag-nathan-merritt","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-new-south-wales","tag-newswire-court","tag-nrl","tag-oceania","tag-pub-brawl","tag-security-guards","tag-sports","tag-sports-bar","tag-stewart-mclean","tag-surry-hills","tag-sydney","tag-unknown-males","tag-unknown-man","tag-unknown-men","tag-unknown-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434723","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=434723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}