A media boss charged with assaulting a woman says he will immediately enter a rehab program, after being stood down from his role.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antony Catalano, the co-owner and chairman of Australian Community Media (ACM), is alleged to have dragged a woman through an apartment and swung a clothes iron at her head during an assault in Melbourne on Friday.<\/p>\n
The woman suffered a fractured tailbone and was hospitalised after the alleged assault, the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court heard.<\/p>\n
Mr Catalano is charged with assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill, and was placed on an indefinite leave of absence from his role at ACM following the incident.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Mr Catalano acknowledged the allegations and apologised for the distress caused.<\/p>\n
“I am deeply ashamed and humiliated. I know that my actions have caused hurt and concern for others, including the woman involved, my family, friends, colleagues and the many people connected to the businesses I have been privileged to lead,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“I have been struggling with significant mental health and substance abuse issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Those close to me have been urging me to seek professional help for some time and there have been interventions by close family and friends.”<\/p>\n
Mr Catalano said he had ignored people telling him to seek professional help for his mental health issues until now.<\/p>\n
“In light of recent events, I have now accepted that I need help and I will be checking myself into a rehabilitation program immediately,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I will also be taking a six-month leave of absence from all professional responsibilities so I can focus entirely on treatment and recovery.”<\/p>\n
The statement from Mr Catalano was published by ACM-owned publication The Canberra Times on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
The ABC had contacted Mr Catalano directly and via ACM for his statement. An ACM spokesperson referred the ABC to his statement published by The Canberra Times.<\/p>\n
On Friday, police called for Mr Catalano to be denied bail and remanded in custody, arguing he posed an unacceptable risk of further offending and fleeing Victoria.<\/p>\n
But Mr Catalano’s barrister Jason Gullaci SC said his client, a father of nine, had a clean criminal record and “significant” property and business interests.<\/p>\n
Mr Gullaci also said that certain allegations, such as the claim that Mr Catalano forcefully swung the iron at the woman’s head during the incident, were not in the written police summary.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Rohan Lawrence granted Mr Catalano’s release after the media boss agreed to a series of bail conditions.<\/p>\n
The case was adjourned until May 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A media boss charged with assaulting a woman says he will immediately enter a rehab program, after being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[117994,267186,24278,64,63,141723,1108,48,44],"class_list":["post-541260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-acm","tag-antony-catalano","tag-assault","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-community-media","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541260","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=541260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}