Rugby league presenter Paul Kent drank 21 schooners before an ugly street brawl outside a Rozelle pub earlier this year, a court has heard.
Video footage in April captured an intoxicated Kent reacting angrily to being insulted by Tamer Uzun as he walked past him, branding Uzun a “doghead” before removing his watch and resisting an effort to subdue him.
Cocking his fists, Kent then charged at the 35-year-old, with whom he traded punches before the clash shifted onto the street in front of the venue and the journalist was flung head-first into the trunk of a roadside tree.
The man he squared up to on Friday appeared briefly in the Downing Centre Local Court on an affray charge, which his lawyer, Bryan Wrench, said he would ask police to withdraw.
“We have obtained a number of CCTV videos, it’s a matter of an affray where we say our client is the victim, he was attacked,” Wrench told the Downing Centre Local Court on Friday morning.
Tamer Uzun (centre) leaves the Downing Centre District court on Friday.Credit: Nikki Short
Uzun and Kent will both return to court next month.
Kent had drunk 21 schooners in the lead-up to the brawl, Wrench told the court.
This masthead has reported that he spent the afternoon of April 27 at his regular table at the Sackville Hotel, before becoming embroiled in the fracas as he made his way towards his Lilyfield home.