Former NRL prop George Burgess is launching a shock footy comeback with a surprise club after being found not guilty of sexually touching a woman without her consent earlier this year.
The 32-year-old played 149 games for South Sydney and won a premiership with the Rabbitohs in 2014 alongside his brothers Sam and Tom, as well as his 15 caps for England.
He stepped away from the game in 2022 amid a combination of injuries and personal issues, which included the charge of sexual touching without consent and a stint in rehab to deal with gambling and depression issues.
In 2023, he made a return with the Cairns Brothers team in far north Queensland and has now been given approval by the South Sydney Junior Rugby League board to play the rest of the remaining games of the 2024 season with the South Eastern Seagulls, who are based in Malabar in Sydney’s south-east.
The ex-South Sydney star was charged in March 2022 after a woman claimed Burgess ‘touched her bottom’ without her consent.
Former NRL prop George Burgess (pictured playing for Souths) is launching a shock footy comeback with Sydney’s South Eastern Seagulls team
Burgess (pictured outside court in March) was acquitted of groping a woman known to him earlier this year
In May this year he was cleared of the allegations with a magistrate finding that Burgess went to the woman’s house with the intention of being intimate with her while dropping off a jersey for a charity event, but did not grope her.
Burgess pleaded not guilty to a single charge of sexually touching another person without consent while at the woman’s Mascot home.
The former footy star admitted to going to the home of the woman, whom he had known for about a decade, after agreeing to provide a signed jersey for charity.
As Burgess dialled into court via audiovisual link, magistrate Emma Manea told the court that the former NRL player had attended the woman’s house for just 11 minutes from 10.24am to 10.35am.
The magistrate told the court that she believed Mr Burgess’s evidence and acquitted the former football player.
Earlier this year, Burgess told the court that he was only being ‘cheeky and friendly’ with the woman but it was ‘nothing more than that’.
He was married at the time but told the court that he had intentions to be intimate with the woman and admitted to being ‘flirty’, asking her to ‘stay and be naughty’ with him.
During the first day of the hearing in October 2023, the woman told the court that she felt ‘violated’ when Mr Burgess attempted to kiss her moments after handing over the jersey.
Burgess (pictured playing for Souths) made a return to footy in 2023 with the Cairns Brothers after a brief stint with the Cairns Brothers team in far north Queensland
She offered him a cup of tea to ‘try to defuse the situation’.
‘I opened the cupboard and he’s turned around (and) grabbed me on the bottom,’ the woman told police in body-worn vision played in court.
‘I froze on the inside and was just looking at the tea. He put a hand either side of my body and pressed right up against me. … I told him, ‘this is not going to happen’.’
The court was told Mr Burgess was asked if he was still married and he responded: ‘Yes, but you know how it is.’
Mr Burgess continued: ‘Come on, just five minutes, stay and be naughty with me.’
He denied kissing the woman or grabbing her bottom but said he had put his hand on her back while she was making him a cup of tea ‘to be friendly’.
‘She went over to the kitchen bench and I sort of came behind her to see what tea she was using because I like Yorkshire tea,’ Mr Burgess told the court in March.
The Englishman’s new career move comes just over a year since he split with wife Joanna King (pictured together) after seven years of marriage
The court was told the woman said: ‘I’m not that kind of girl, I wouldn’t do this to another woman.’
While sitting on the lounge, Mr Burgess admitted to telling her: ‘We’ve known each other 10 years, nothing has ever happened between us but something should.’
In his evidence, Mr Burgess conceded he noticed the woman was ‘a bit uncomfortable’, prompting him to leave.
When asked in court if the woman had been ‘rejecting’ his advances from the moment he arrived, Mr Burgess said ‘yes’.
The 32-year-old is returning to the field after last playing in the NRL with the St George Illawarra Dragons in 2022 (pictured)
The court was told Mr Burgess sent the woman a ‘horny devil emoji’ after leaving her house, which she ignored, but later messaged saying she was ‘really uncomfortable’ with what happened.
‘She said that you put a huge cloud over such a nice thing that you did in respect to the jersey and the fact you had known each other 10 years, she thought she could trust you in her own home,’ Police prosecutor Adrian Walsh said to Mr Burgess during his evidence.
Mr Burgess told the court that he was ‘gutted and shocked’ by the message and replied saying he was ‘so sorry’, as he wanted to ‘defuse’ the situation.
The prosecutor asked: ‘You were trying to water it down so it would protect your family and your career.’
‘Yes,’ Mr Burgess replied.
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