Victoria Police have issued a major update into their investigation into the alleged sexual assault scandal involving Sydney Swans players, revealing their focus has narrowed to four players.
The Swans have been in crisis mode since five players — Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice — were suspended for the rest of the season for breaching club standards.
Separately, a police investigation into sexual assault allegations related to what allegedly took place in a room at East Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel is ongoing.
Detectives this week travelled to New South Wales to conduct interviews and confirmed they have spoken to four people as part of their investigation, meaning one of the original ‘Pullman Five’ was not formally interviewed.
But police did say they spoke to or will speak to three more men believed to be in the room at the time of the incident, who are being treated solely as witnesses.
No charges have been laid by police and 7NEWS is not suggesting any criminal wrongdoing.
“Police now believe they have now identified all parties who were in the room at the time of the alleged incident and are not looking for anyone further,” they said in a statement.
“The investigation into the circumstances remains active and ongoing.”
Police also said there might not be a further update for around eight weeks.
Meanwhile, Sydney coach Dean Cox said “things are changing by the hour” with the club’s five suspended players.
The five players have not attended training while Cox prepares his second-placed side for Saturday’s home qualifying final against Brisbane.
“One thing I’ll always do is support my players. I’m staying in dialogue with those five players while they’re away from the football club,” Cox told AFL 360 on Tuesday night.
“I speak about their welfare, how they’re going, if we can support in any way. I think we need to understand that’s one thing I’ll always do.
“I haven’t spoken to them at all about the police investigation, and also I think we need to understand that there’s still an investigation in process. We need to get all the facts on that before we make any assumptions.
“It’s purely about support and I’ll continue to do that.”
Asked by Gerard Whateley if the players could return to the fold, noting it would be “an extraordinary circus” if they made an appearance at training, Cox gave an eye-opening answer.
“I think things are changing by the hour and the day,” he said.
“So people upstairs … I’m privy to some of those conversations … about how we best manage our football team at the minute and focus as heavily as we can on this weekend’s game whilst also supporting those players while they’re not at the club.
“There’s no timeframe on when they will return, we’ll keep talking about it each day and assess the situation from there.”
More to come …
