You invited Cockayne back for the end of season lap of honour so you could all applaud him like some hero

Now you want to re-sign him

The timing of the hearing combined with Lineham's injury possibly ruling him out of the CC final is [ivery[/i unfortunate.
I'm not in anyway condoning what he (or Cockayne before him) did, but for me non-custodial sentence, first offence - you try to give people a second chance, while making it clear they're on very thin ice. If they left you down again, you [ishould[/i then cut them adrift or it reflects badly.
The politic (and given Crookes wasn't playing, in this case fairly painless, if Lineham hadn't got injured) thing to do is to suspend the player for a spell. You're standing by your player, but also sending out a message that this sort of thing isn't acceptable. I've no reason to suspect that AP's quoted opinion is anything other than entirely genuine. But Lineham's injury will also make it [ilook[/i convenient.

Possibly. Restraint of trade is common law rather than specific legislation so it's open to interpretation depending on circumstances. In theory any sporting body is entitled to place whatever restrictions it likes on membership of it's sport and/or competitions as long as they don't conflict directly with primary legislation, and they also get treated slightly differently to normal businesses.

You really are clutching at straws by saying punching a woman in the face is better than kicking a bloke on the floor, both pretty despicable whichever way you look at it.

I also think you'll find the majority of HKR fans don't want BC back contrary to popular belief.

I'm really not clutching at straws, neither am I condoning in any way what Crookes did. But you're an idiot if you think repeatedly kicking and punching a man while he lay prone on the floor is 'as despicable' as punching a woman.

I do actually and you've just said punching a woman in the face is better than kicking a prone man, to even think of comparing two bads is nonsensical

rlI should imagine Ben Crooks is delighted to feature in this articlerl

Pathetic.

The club have limited options as he was in his own time when it happened. As a representative of the club though I hope he feels thoroughly ashamed of himself. He has done himself and the club no favours here at all.

We could make the "all make mistakes" argument, especially as he is young and had a few beers in him no doubt, but hitting a woman unfortunately shows a character flaw which I'm not entirely sure we want associated with the club. Hopefully the club will behind doors give him a thoroughly verbal kicking and let him know his career with us is on line if anything similar happens again.

I have to say, I'm surprised by Adam Pearson's response. Nothing wrong with standing by your employee, especially if you do feel there are two sides to the story here (which there may well be). But he certainly hasn't being treated harshly given there is little doubt that he assaulted women.

The thing is the club takes a stance and sacks him some other club will just sign him up and give some crap about giving him, a second chance we gave cockayne enough chances he just did it one too many times

We likely couldn't sack him anyway. He would have a case for a contractual breach. It didn't happen while he was doing his job.

3 or 4 years ago Greg Bird and Todd Carney, can't remember the punishment.

Was that the RFL or was it the UKBA?

I would have thought it comes under gross misconduct / bringing the club into disripute.