Ex-soccer player charged over torture of woman
A FORMER professional football player has been charged over the alleged three-week torture of a Brisbane woman.
Former Brisbane Strikers and Brisbane City midfielder Jeromy Lee Harris, 41, was yesterday charged with a string of offences relating to the ordeal that left 21-year-old Tanya Nicole Roberts in an induced coma.
She remains in Royal Bris- bane and Women’s Hospital with life-threatening burns to her body.
On Wednesday, Ms Roberts’s ex boyfriend, Nicholas John Crilley, 31, was charged with torture offences over the same incident.
Police allege Crilley burnt Ms Roberts from head to toe and bashed her. He was arrested following a police pursuit across three Brisbane suburbs on Tuesday.
It is alleged the torture of Ms Roberts occurred somewhere in Brisbane, but police yesterday were still to determine exactly where.
According to court documents, Harris lives in the house where a battered Ms Roberts was found on July 2. Paramedics arrived at Harris’s Bulimba unit after Crilley made a panicked triple-0 call.
The relationship between Crilley, Harris and Ms Roberts was unknown last night.
Harris and Crilley are friends on Facebook. Both men have also been charged with supplying the drug alprazolam, also known as Xanax, to Ms Roberts.
Other charges against Harris and Crilley include acts intended to disfigure, acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm and deprivation of liberty. Crilley has also been charged over his alleged police pursuit.
Harris, who grew up Rockhampton, became in a financial planner following his retirement from football.
He won the old National Soccer League with the Strikers in 1997 and with Sydney’s Olympic Sharks in 2002.
Harris was a one-time teammate of former Socceroos coach Frank Farina. Teammates last night expressed shock at his arrest.
Harris will front court in Brisbane today.