Revealed: The City Lawyer Who Stalked Troubled Footy Star

The Sunday Age

Sunday April 22, 2007

Gary Tippet

For years Jonathan Hay endured a man trying to gain control of his life, writes Gary Tippet.

THE stalker who for years harassed former all-Australian full-back Jonathan Hay (right) has been revealed to be a lawyer with a Collins Street firm.

The man, who called himself Sheik on Hawthorn supporter websites, alleged Hay was importing illicit drugs from Asia and was using banned human growth hormones while playing for the Hawks. He also allegedly sifted through the footballer's rubbish and used gay internet sites to direct homosexual men to Hay's home.

Hay, who revealed last year that he suffered from bipolar disorder, told Channel Nine's Footy Show last month that the stalking went on for about five years and said the man "still pops his head up". The harassment "really put me on my arse for a while", he said.

Hay's Perth-based manager, Peter Christie, who confirmed the man's identity to The Sunday Age, described him as a "loopy lunatic". Former Hawthorn football manager John Hook said he was an obviously intelligent man, but also a control freak suffering "an unnatural obsession" with Hay.

Hay was traded from Hawthorn to the Kangaroos in 2005, but quit the club this year to manage his depression. Mr Hook said last week that he hoped the stalker realised he had helped destroy Hay's career.

The alleged stalker did not return calls from The Sunday Age, but through a legal firm has denied the claims.

Mr Christie said Hay became involved with the man, a long-time Hawthorn fan, when they lived near each other. "He knocked on Jon's door one day and said, 'Mate, someone's egged your car' - in other words chucked eggs all over Jon's car."

Mr Christie said he "used that as a prompt to make contact with Jon" and begin a friendship that included having Hay stay at his home after the footballer had surgery, and promising to help him win marketing deals. Only later did the player and manager learn it was the lawyer who egged the car.

Mr Christie said of the man's obsession with Hay: "Maybe he's just a liniment-sniffer."

Mr Hook said the friendship soured when the man became involved in Hay's contract negotiations. "Things went sour and when Jon started to see that it wasn't a natural friendship and tried to kick him out of his life, he didn't like that. And that's when this other stuff started."

"I used to get threats in the mail," Hay told The Footy Show. "He rang the footy club and told them that I was taking performance-enhancing drugs. I got investigated by the AFL. He rang the AFL and told them that I was distributing . . . illicit drugs I was importing from Asia."

He said the stalker hung around his house in the early morning, going through his rubbish bins and was "jumping onto internet sites, saying that he was Jonathan Hay and sending gay guys over to my house . . . which was interesting".

Calling himself Sheik, he began sending "private messages" to members of the Hawthorn fans' website HawkHeadquarters. Blocked from posting similar claims on the public webpage, he was able to get around the ban by circulating messages to as many fellow members as he could.

In one message he claimed to know Hay, but said "a mate of mine" knew him better and lived on the same street: "My mate found out that Jon was taking a performance-enhancing drug, recombinant human growth hormone throughout the 2001 season - the only good season he ever played. (Daniel) Chick was taking it too."

He claimed that before the start of the 2002 season, his "mate" informed John Hook. Sheik then said Hook, with Hay's consent, had devised a Machiavellian plan to discredit the claims - publishing an email alleging Hay was a drug trafficker, knowing media would follow up the story.

"When they did so, Hook told them that the email had been started by a former friend of Hay's who had been stalking Hay," he wrote. "Hook did it so that, if my mate ever went public with the truth, no one would believe him."

Mr Christie said he and Hay had considered an intervention order against the stalker. "In the end . . . we had a bloke from the police force gently lean on him and say, 'Mate, pull up or otherwise we'll sort this out once and for all'."

But last October, after Hay revealed he had bipolar disorder, Sheik popped up on another Hawthorn supporter forum. He claimed he was part of Hay's support network and was seeking information, even false information, about Hay.

Hay told The Footy Show the stalking went on for about five years. "And that really put me on my arse for a while, to know that there's people out there like that who, at all costs, are trying to take you down." He added: "It is just so far-fetched that this bloke needs some serious help himself."A story in last week's Sunday Age - "City Lawyer Stalked Troubled Footy Star" - quoted an allegation by the alleged stalker of Jonathan Hay about former Hawthorn footballer manager John Hook.

© 2007 The Sunday Age

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