Sydney Swans incident updates: Four men interviewed by police over sexual assault allegations

Detectives from Victoria Police’s Sexual Crimes Squad have formally interviewed four Sydney Swans players as part of an investigation into allegations of sexual assault inside a Melbourne hotel room.

The AFL club earlier this month stood down players Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon, and Riley Bice for breaching the club’s standards after partying to the early hours following a win against Essendon in Melbourne on August 17.

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Three women have filed statements to Victoria Police following the alleged incident in a Pullman East hotel room. Nine.com.au is not suggesting any criminal wrongdoing by the five players.

Victoria Police on Wednesday confirmed that detectives travelled to Sydney to speak to four people this week, including a 26-year-old man and a 25-year-old man from Randwick, a 30-year-old Maroubra man and a 25-year-old Paddington man.

Heeney, 30, is understood to be the Maroubra man interviewed.

Detectives have also either spoken to or plan to speak with three men believed to have been in the hotel room at the time of the incident, with police describing them as “solely witnesses”.

“Police now believe they have now identified all parties who were in the room at the time of the alleged incident and are not looking for anyone further,” Victoria Police said in a statement.

Detectives do not expect any major updates into the investigation for about two months.

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Detectives have already travelled to Sydney and spoken to Swans head coach Dean Cox, football boss Leon Cameron, head of player wellbeing and development Brett Kirk, and communications chief Tom Chadwick.

There is no suggestion any of those men were inside the hotel room or are a focus of the investigation.

The five suspended Swans players reportedly started engaging individual legal advice as they prepared to be formally interviewed by detectives this week.

It is understood at least three separate law firms have been engaged to help the players.

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Following news of the incident being made public, the Swans stood down the five players in question for the remainder of the AFL season – a suspension of between three and five games, including Saturday’s qualifying final against the Lions and a possible grand final.

The club stressed the sanction was not related to the police investigation or the report of an alleged sexual assault, but for a breach of standards.

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Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham said the decision to stand down the quintet had “torpedoed” the club’s season after a second-placed finish on the ladder.

Following the sanction, the players released a statement accepting the punishment and saying they were “deeply sorry to everyone involved”.

“We know that our behaviour has fallen well short of the standards expected of us and the values of our club,” they said.

The AFL postponed naming its All Australian side by several days and barred the five players – three of whom, Heeney, Warner and Blakey, were considered either certain or likely selections – from the honour.

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The players were also not invited to this month’s Brownlow Medal night, although they remain eligible to win the award.

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