Daniel Dobson, the 22-year old British man who was arrested last week at the Australian Open for allegedly partaking in “court-siding”, has been released on bail and allowed to return to England, provided that he lives with his pops in the UK, who ironically, is a detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police’s homicide and serious crime unit.
Dobson was arrested last January 16 while watching the Australian Open with an electronic transmitting device that was apparently stitched into his shorts. Dobson’s defense council had hoped to have the charges dropped, but the Melbourne Magistrates Court slammed that door shut on him, insisting that he provide a $10,000 surety before being allowed to return back to England. That was handled by Dobson’s pops, who travelled all the way to Melbourne to attend his son’s court hearing.
The younger Dobson does have to come back to Melbourne on March 6 for his court case, an assurance the courts received from his dad after a meeting between the accused’s legal councl and the Office of Public Prosecutions failed to put the case to rest. Dobson now holds the distinction of being the first person to be charged under the state of Victoria’s new ‘court-siding’ law under the Crimes Amendment (Integrity in Sports) Act 2013 that was only put into stone in April of 2013. Had Dobson been convicted, he could have faced a sentence of up to 10 years behind bars.
But the defense is arguing that the prosecution initially considered dropping the charges against Dobson while also pointing out that the police wanted to offer to place him on diversion, an equivalent of a get-out-of-jail card that lets first-time offenders take responsibility for their actions without any charges being levied against them. The court’s view changed, though, when information came to light that the Australian Open isn’t the first tournament that he got kicked out of for “court-siding”.
Dobson’s employer, Sporting Data Limited, also denied last week that their employee did anything wrong and that the current laws that were only introduced last April, while a good one at that, was applied inappropriately in Dobson’s case.
But all’s well that ends well, at least given the circumstances. He still has a court hearing scheduled in March 6. But for now, Dobson can go back home and sleep in his own bed for a change.
