{"id":776364,"date":"2026-07-03T11:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776364\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T11:32:18","slug":"wa-to-remove-nicky-winmar-statue-after-afl-great-found-guilty-of-assaulting-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776364\/","title":{"rendered":"WA to remove Nicky Winmar statue after AFL great found guilty of assaulting woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western Australian<\/a> Premier Roger Cook has ordered a bronze statue of AFL great Nicky Winmar be removed after the former St Kilda legend was found guilty of assaulting a woman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Winmar was on Friday found guilty of dragging a woman by the hair and smashing her head against a door at Cohuna in northern Victoria<\/a> on May 14, 2025.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former St Kilda Saints player and Western Australian-born Noongar man Nicky Winmar poses for a photograph in front of his statue at Optus Stadium in Perth, Saturday, July 6, 2019. \u00a0nna\\sswain<\/p>\n

The magistrate convicted Winmar of two charges of common law assault and one count of unlawful assault, but threw out a fourth charge of intentionally causing injury.<\/p>\n

Following the magistrate\u2019s verdict, the WA government announced it had ordered a statue of the Western Australian-born Noongar man, which stands outside Perth\u2019s Optus Stadium, be removed.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolence against women is never acceptable, and it is important we send a strong message to the community,\u201d Cook said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nicky Winmar outside court in Bendigo after he was found guilty of assaulting a woman.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing Nicky Winmar\u2019s conviction, I\u2019m of the firm view that it is no longer appropriate for that statue to be displayed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statue depicts Winmar\u2019s famed stand against racism during a 1993 game against Collingwood, when the St Kilda player lifted his jumper and proudly pointed at his skin. It was erected at Optus Stadium in 2019.<\/p>\n

Winmar will face a pre-sentence hearing for his assault charges at a later date.<\/p>\n

He is also co-leading a landmark racism class action against the AFL in the Victorian Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service<\/a>1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Australian Premier Roger Cook has ordered a bronze statue of AFL great Nicky Winmar be removed after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-776364","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776364","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=776364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}