Former AFL player Liam Jurrah is the latest professional footballer to earn a Wife Beater Tattoo after pleading guilty to assaulting his ex-wife and partner.
The Frownlowm Medal Wife Beater Tattoo is awarded to every player who has been found guilty of assaulting women, and combines footballers’ love of tattoos and mistreating women.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes; the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while NRL star Jarryd Hayne is the most recent recipient.
The Frownlow Medal Hall of Fame honours former players and players who received media attention in previous seasons, for similarly scandalous behaviour, and its inductees include Ben Cousins and Julian O’Neill.
Jurrah was sentenced to prison in 2015 after pleading guilty to punching his former wife and threatening another woman with a broken bottle. The former Melbourne Demons player breached a domestic violence order (DVO) while visiting his ex-wife in Hermannsburg, NT, when the attack took place.
The court heard that he also assaulted another ex-partner a month later. The mother of his son was attacked in a town camp in Alice Springs, and also had a DVO out against Jurrah before the assault. The woman was threatened with a broken bottle and required stitches as a result of the attack.
Reports indicate that Jurrah had yelled at his baby’s mother to come home with him from the town camp, before climbing into her yard and punching her, and then chasing her in his car. He then refused to participate in separate recorded interviews with police.
Jurrah was sentenced to nine months jail, suspended for four months.
Image: NuNa
The Frownlow Medal 