Ben Cousins has been sentenced to 12 months jail after repeatedly breaching a RVO against his former partner.
Earlier this month, the 38-year-old pleaded guilty to 11 charges, including aggravated stalking of his former partner and mother of his two children, Maylea Tinecheff, drug possession and breaching a RVO.
The former Brownlow medallist has spent more than a month in jail after being arrested in February in the southern Perth suburb of Melville.
Despite Cousins’ lawyer suggesting a rare spot in residential rehab program for the former AFL player, the court was shown Cousins’ tapped phone calls to his father where he said he had “no intention of quitting drugs”.
His lawyer, Michael Tudori, said those calls were made before his sobering four week stint behind bars and he was now “ready and willing to enter a residential rehabilitation program”.
However, the police prosecutor was seeking a prison sentence.
Cousins’ battle with drugs came to the forefront of Australian consciousness in 2007 when the young player was suspended from AFL for a year for “bringing the game into disrepute”.
He then returned to the game with Richmond only to retire in 2010, but his public battle with drugs has ensured he is often in the media.
