NQ quiet on Macdonald offending Scrutiny on ex-star fails

FORMER Cowboys rugby league player Nene Macdonald was wanted by police for more than two years after driving unlicensed in Cairns and failing to appear in court over the offence.

The club distanced itself from the player and refused to answer whether a police check was conducted on Macdonald before he was signed and whether it was aware of the unlicensed driving.

“The club won’t be making any comment on Nene moving forward,” the Cowboys said in response to a series of questions.

Court documents reveal Macdonald, who parted ways with the club last week, was caught behind the wheel without a licence days after Christmas in 2016 and was supposed to appear in court the following month, but never showed.

A warrant was issued for his arrest but he was only arrested in May, two years later.

The matter was only finalised on June 18 and his licence was disqualified for six months.

Two days later he allegedly crashed a hire car on Magnetic Island.

It’s understood clubs often carry out independent police checks on specific players.

When determining whether a player is a fit and proper person in order to be registered as a player, the NRL may also conduct police checks.

The Queensland Police Service would not comment on why it took so long for officers to arrest Macdonald, despite being a well-known sporting person in North Queensland.

“Police cannot provide comment in relation to this matter,” a spokesman said. “It has been finalised before the court, however, is still subject to an appeal period.”

Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts said it was not uncommon for lengthy delays in arrests for court-issued warrants.

He said court-issued warrants went to a centralised police bureau but more often than not, unless it is a serious offence, the warrant is not actually executed until another traffic offence, or if that person comes to the attention of police.

“At any one stage, there are I suspect, hundreds of thousands of warrants sitting there and the police … quite often don’t crossmatch all of the data which they have in their possession,” he said.

“Unless they somehow come to the attention of police in another way, more often than not those warrants can lie around for literally years.”