'Bordering on absurd': Ex-Dragons player loses hammer attack appeal

Junior Amone and his father Talatau 'Senior' Amone faced Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Friday, where a judge dismissed the appeal for a conviction over a violent assault against a tradie near their Warrawong home in November 2022.

The father-son duo were found guilty in a local court of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company, stalking or intimidation, and damaging property.

Magistrate Gabriel Fleming heard evidence in a hearing last October from tradesmen Jai King and Dean West who were working on a rooftop across from the Amone household.

A heated dispute between Senior and the tradies about a Nissan Navara parked on a nature strip erupted, with Senior taking pictures of the vehicle.

Mr King said Senior approached the ute, elbowed the rearview mirror, and snapped off an indicator, before Junior jumped on the vehicle.

Junior then climbed onto the roof and swung a hammer at him, he said.

Mr King jumped onto a neighbouring rooftop to escape Junior, before he fell from the two-storey height and sustained serious injuries, including two broken hands and broken ribs.

Junior narrowly escaped time behind bars after being sentenced to a two-year intensive correction order, while Senior received two years and six months' jail.

They were also ordered to pay $6740.90 in compensation to Mr King for damage caused to the ute, which included a smashed windscreen.

In the aftermath of the sentence, Junior was deregistered by the NRL with his $500,000 contract torn up.

During an appeal hearing on Tuesday, defence barrister John Korn argued it was a case of "mistaken identity" and that the evidence did not identify Junior as the assailant.

Mr Korn said the tradesmen colluded in their evidence to "stitch up" Junior by identifying him through googling his father's name and reading a news article about him.

"These two witnesses ... came to that court and gave unreliable and deliberately false evidence," Mr Korn said.

On the morning before the incident, Junior was captured on CCTV at Sydney Airport, having just returned from the Rugby League World Cup, and at Service NSW building.

He was later seen on CCTV footage in a nearby street running in the aftermath of the attack, wearing the same clothes.

Mr Korn disputed the footage depicting Junior and an unidentified shirtless man running away was evidence that he was fleeing the crime scene.

"That doesn't mean they're fleeing ... Why can't they just be out for a run?," Mr Korn said, adding that this wouldn't be unusual for Junior as he was an athlete.

Judge William Fitzsimmons disputed this argument as "bordering on absurd" and "lacking credibility".

The judge added Junior was wearing the same clothing as captured on CCTV footage earlier that day at an airport and Service NSW building.

Mr King identified Junior on the rooftop as being a Pacific Islander male aged between 19-20, tall, athletic, with a "porno" moustache and floral theme tattoo on his left forearm, the judge said.

He accepted the magistrate's findings that Mr King and Mr West were credible and truthful witnesses.

Junior held his head in his hands when the appeal was dismissed.

Mr Korn then applied for the father and son's respective sentences to be reduced, arguing a lesser sentence for Junior may improve his chances of returning to the NRL.

"He shouldn't have a punishment that's going to be a life sentence," Mr Korn said. "It was intended to be his vocation in life."

The judge foreshadowed a community corrections order for Junior would be unlikely due to the seriousness of the offending, before adjourning the severity appeal to June 26.

"The victim was, quite understandably, so concerned for his own life that he took the step of leaping from one roof to another," Judge Fitzsimmons said.