TIMBOON Demons skipper Ash Hunt has been spared an immediate suspension after a reconvened Warrnambool and District Football Netball League independent tribunal on Monday night.
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Five days after Hunt was sensationally hit with a one-game suspension for giving unsatisfactory evidence, the tribunal softened the penalty to a two-week suspended sentence until the end of 2017.
The tribunal was reconvened after last Wednesday’s hearing of a headbutting charge against Panmure’s Kallan Melican saw Hunt, the offended player, slapped with a one-week ban without being given the chance to plead his case.
Tribunal chairman Terry O’Keefe said on Monday the panel felt Hunt’s “evidence had omitted a very important fact” in denying he had been headbutted.
Hunt’s advocate Craig Saunders said head contact had occurred, but the recipient had been Hunt’s teammate Luke Davison.
But the tribunal was unable to consider new evidence because it had not been raised last week.
“What we’ve found out after the game was that there was a strike to Ash – (there) may well have been a headbutt, but it wasn’t to Ash,” Saunders said.
He said Hunt only became aware of the headbutt to Davison after the hearing.
After lengthy deliberation, the tribunal upheld its initial decision, but in hearing 27-year-old Hunt’s unblemished record and standing as captain for the past three years, revised its earlier penalty.