Former State of Origin star Dave Taylor and his old Gold Coast Titans teammates Joe Vickery and Jamie Dowling have been committed to stand trial for drug charges in a Queensland court.
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“It really gets down to whether or not, in my view, these third party conversations would be admissible against the defendant”, Magistrate Christopher Callaghan said.
The prosecution’s case hinged on intercepted text message and telephone conversations the players had with Touma – a wine merchant – in which various terms were used allegedly to disguise talk of drug deals. A large volume of the pair’s communication was submitted as evidence, but Mr Holt argued there is no case for his client to answer. The court also heard Falloon withdrew a total of $950 in four transactions across the Gold Coast on a day he was in contact with Touma.
Falloon had also spoken of sneaking out of a team gathering to meet Touma.
“Essentially it’s just a conversation between two people meeting up at a function or not, ‘ defence lawyer Saul Holt said”.
A message was also sent from Falloon’s phone, which Mr Copley said was Falloon deliberately pretending to be someone else, proposing to “catch up for a beer”.
“It’s inference upon inference upon inference, to the 15th degree”, Magistrate Callaghan said.
Without these, there was insufficient evidence to support each of the four counts of drug possession with which the 28-year-old had been charged.
Harrison refused to comment as he walked away from court.
Bird attended the Gold Coast Magistrate court on Thursday, where his two drugs charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence.
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Australian rugby league worldwide Greg Bird has been cleared of drugs charges over his alleged involvement in a cocaine supply ring.
