Playing devils advocate a bit...don't people deserve a second chance after a first offence? The whole story seems a little strange in the paper and AP's comments dont seem to make much sense given a fairly lenient sentence for assault.

I think it was both NRL AND UKBA in the case of the one who went to Catalans, possibly Bird. The other one was dealt with by the NRL. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The Ben Crooks picture about sums up the national press and RL, really unbelievable that no one picked up the pictures were of totally different people.

On the JC one, he seems to have been lucky not to cop a charge on attempting to pervert the course of justice if he'd (or Lee Radford had) been trying to contact a witness.

Getting dangerously into the realms of speculation here.

No offence would be committed unless they were seeking to put improper pressure on her to change her evidence or his bail conditions prevented him contacting prosecution witnesses.

For all we know the approach could have been made with the knowledge of the Police, who don't generally give out the addresses or contact details of victims/witnesses to defendants.

As i've said previously, the club should stand by Ben and help him put this behind him but under no circumstances should they make out this is ok like it states in the press. They may have taken some action behind closed doors but its in the public domain that they need to be seen to be doing something about it even if behind closed doors they aren't.

What was it that Aspinwal got done for before the start of last year? I remember something like an altercation with a bouncer.

Don't believe you put Ben.

I see what you did there

What a ing tool you are, he nearly killed a man FFS.

That excuse is never going to fly

Employment tribunals wouldn't give a monkeys unless it meant he was unable to do his job or if it can be proved he was unsuitable to do his job, likely under break of trust and confidence. Something which is next to impossible to prove and in a court that usually sides with employees over employers.

This ^^^^^^

We don't know all the ins and outs, but glossing over it as AP has done is convenient apologism, given Lineham's injury.

Only one tool here mate, seems that in your view because there are 'worse' crimes that were punished at the time by a club (and for me he should have been sacked) then a 15st rugby player punching a girl in the face (trust me that could end up with more than a black eye) and the club doing nothing but defend him seems almost ok!!!

It takes a certain sort of 'man' to ever contemplate hitting a woman in the face, his mum must be so proud.