Our prayers with David Hookes

[iamdavid]

Zdravco Micevic

 

[Mister Wright]

From Andre

Cricket Web Members,

I will be writing a letter to the Hookes family to express the thoughts and condolences of the Cricket Web community. Cricket Web has asked that members do not send their own private messages to the email link provided as it will cause unnessecary strain on the already burdoned Hookes family. Cricket Web would like to thank everyone for their concern of David Hookes and we encourage you to continue to post your thoughts on the issue. I will keep the Cricket Web community updated on any feedback, if any, that we get.

Thank you all,

Andre Maddocks
Cricket Web

P.S. any questions, feel free to email me - andre.maddocks@cricketweb.net

 

[chris.hinton]

From what I have read and heard, he was trying to break up a fight and got jumped by a bouncer.

That is sad

 

[NikhilN]

OMG he is dead

 

[anzac]

my condolences to the family.............

 

[Blewy]

A bit more info which seems to shed a bit more light on the incident...

'An instant hero'

Wisden Cricinfo staff

January 19, 2004


Rod Marsh former Australia team-mate and current England Academy coach

In many ways, I wish I'd been there on Sunday night, and been able to step in. As a young man Hookesy was always very outspoken - he was known as the bumptious brat of Dulwich while playing club cricket in England. But it seems that all he was doing was defending a player's wife, who was being spoken to rudely by someone in the bar. He always stood up for his players, and you don't deserve to die for that.

He'll forever be famous for those five fours in the Centenary Test, but they were all genuine cricket shots, and make no mistake, he could play. When he was on the attack, he was very dangerous indeed. Perhaps he wasn't a great player of spin, but there have been a lot of blokes of lesser ability who've played a lot more Tests than Hookes. He made a lot of friends and had a very high profile in cricket. He will be sadly missed.

Very interesting...

 

[anzac]

The industry is owned by the bikies, man. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it comes out that he's a Hell's Angel or at least hired by a company owned by them. Take it from someone who works for SA Police spending night after day chasing these guys.

As for the guy himself, I'd say he'd be unlucky to get murder in the first or second degree. I'd say the more likely charge to stick initially would be involuntary manslaughter. If his lawyers are good, it'll get pea-bargained down to assault with intent to cause grevious bodily harm but they'd have to be good.

I take it you are referring to the Nightclub security industry when you say it is owned by the bikies & not the Security Industry as a whole............

I agree with your summation re possible charges - as you know the law requires 2 parts to any incident to constitute a crime & these circumstances do not indicate a prima facae(sp?) case for murder regarding the 'guilty intent'............hence manslaughter is the more likely path the prosecution would follow....

No doubt this incident will bring nightclub licensing back under the spotlight, and will hopefully result in the tightening of the Industry as a whole........including the training courses and trainers - as there used to be the posibility under the training industry standards for the trainers to be held equally responsible for the actions of someone they have passed as competent to hold a license, if it can be shown that the subject was clearly unfit to do so, or the trainers were in some way negligent in their training.....regardless of what that license is - car/forklift/security/crowd control etc.......

I'm another who can speak from personal experience from both Industries - 10 years in law enforcement including a 15 month stint on Team Policing; 6 years in the Security Industry including working in Nightclubs and also a 2 year stint as a Training Officer for Security Licensing.......

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Rest in peace David Hookes.

This is just awful.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Sir Donald Bradman once said of David Hookes' Test debut, "I thought that Frank Woolley had been reborn."

 

[Slow Love™]

Here's an article that might give a clearer picture of what happened last night...

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/19/1074360698597.html

There seems to be two stories - one is that the group left the pub quietly when it closed, and Hookes intervened in a dispute between the bouncers and some of the players' wives and girlfriends; the other is that Hookes and his group were belligerent when they left, and that's what stirred up the bouncers. Maybe both things happened.

Either way, they were followed by three bouncers, 50 metres to where their cars were, and that's where the altercation took place.

I'm really saddened by this, because Hookes was my favorite player as a kid and teenager (I was always frustrated by the fact that his international record never conveyed his true potential). But as well, I'm very angry, because these kind of deaths as a result of cowardice and unthinking brutality are always very hard to stomach, famous person or not. The motives for incidents like this are just so invariably petty, and it's hard to believe that somebody's life can be ended over a disagreement at a bar.

What made me most angry was the witness testimony that they walked away "satisfied" after Hookes was put down. Sure, they might not have known that they'd killed him, but they had to know he was in very serious trouble, from the way his head hit the ground.

Just sickening. Here today, gone tomorrow. While I'm not sure I agree with those out here rushing to lionize Hookes as a champion of free speech (in recent years he'd got in trouble twice for insensitive racial slurs, and I don't think we should celebrate that about him in particular), he's a real loss to the game of cricket, and I grew up admiring how he played the game. And he was very well liked within the cricket community.

I'll miss Hookesy.

 

[Slow Love™]

Some info on the man charged with assaulting Hookes, Zdravko Micevic:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/19/1074360697676.html

It's a bit confusing as to why he (up to this point) hasn't been charged with manslaughter, but given that there seems to be two other bouncers involved, it's possible that they haven't completely substantiated how things happened yet - I guess it'll become clearer over the next few days.

 

[Richard]

Just got home from school to learn of this.
Can only reiterate what has already been said - always a tragedy when one is taken from us prematurely, and even worse when through the thoughtless brutality of another.
I hope that t*at Micevic and any others involved get the worst punishment possible.
I can only guess at how those close to him feel. I know how I felt after Ben Hollioake was killed, and I'd never even spoken to him. I've been fortunate enough never to have lost someone close to me.
RIP. The cricketing World has lost one of it's number in tragic circumstances.

 

[krkode]

I never liked the guy very much, maybe that's because he never seemed to like India very much.

But I still feel painfully sorry for him. Nobody deserves to die...even if they don't agree with me...

 

[Langeveldt]

Seems painfully reminiscent of the Ben Hollioake tragedy.. ive only just been told about Hooksey and its an awful feeling... A sad day for cricket

My thoughts go to his friends and family, and a letter from CW.net would be a lovely idea andre..

 

[age_master]

It's a bit confusing as to why he (up to this point) hasn't been charged with manslaughter, but given that there seems to be two other bouncers involved, it's possible that they haven't completely substantiated how things happened yet - I guess it'll become clearer over the next few days.

he will no doubt be charged with manslaughter this morning our time. will be interesting to see if he is charged with anything else.


also, if he was already on bail, committing another offense he would be denied bail?

 

[hourn]

i'd say they dont wanna charge him yet - they wanna wait till they get a proper case together.

 

[Craig]

Shows the law is a joke:

If convicted he faces a max. 5 years in prision.

Now tell me that isnt a joke. In the US, he would probably be getting 15.

 

[Slow Love™]

Shows the law is a joke:

If convicted he faces a max. 5 years in prision.

Now tell me that isnt a joke. In the US, he would probably be getting 15.

The US probably isn't the greatest example, because they're just so ridiculously harsh on everything. You can get life for theft in some states, if it's your third offence. And you can get 5 years+ for minor drug offences.

But yeah, I think for killing somebody, this guy deserves around 12-15 years. On what charge are you basing that maximum though? Assault only? It can't be the maximum for manslaughter, surely.

 

[Craig]

Assult and causing murder?

I'm no law expert though.

 

[Andre]

I don't think it's a good thing to speculate on charges, causes etc.

At the end of the day, a great man has passed on and we should be remembering him rather than small-talking.