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'Cousins should name dealers'

Western Australia's top cop says if former AFL star Ben Cousins is truly remorseful about his past drug abuse, he'd come clean and name his dealers.

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Western Australia's top cop says if Ben Cousins is truly remorseful about his past drug abuse, he'd come clean and name his dealers.

On Wednesday night, in the first part of a TV documentary `Such Is Life - The Ben Cousins Story', the Brownlow medallist was shown smoking drugs.

Cousins also admitted taking cocaine, ice, amphetamines and prescription drugs.

WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said despite Cousins' attempt to show just how destructive drugs were, if he was sorry he would give police the names of the dealers.

"If this is about him saying this is what happened to me, this is how terrible it was, then he could do a lot of good by ringing us and telling us who his suppliers were and are," Mr O'Callaghan told Fairfax Radio.

"This is the issue here. These suppliers who allegedly provided drugs to Mr Cousins are still out there providing drugs to other people.

"Kids maybe. Footballers maybe. Who knows, but surely if he was truly remorseful he would be prepared to come forward and tell us who in fact his suppliers were."

Mr O'Callaghan also hit back at claims by Cousins he was arrested as "payback" by the state's police, saying he was caught up in a wider net.

Cousins was pulled over by police in Perth's nightclub district in late 2007 and charged with drug offences, which were subsequently dropped.

At the time, Cousins emerged from his car shirtless with the words "Such Is Life" tattooed across his torso.

The former West Coast midfielder claimed in the documentary he was deliberately targeted by police.

"Cars and coppers came from everywhere," Cousins said of his arrest.

"Northbridge (the site of the arrest) was payback for what had happened in the past."

Mr O'Callaghan said he wasn't surprised by the allegations but stressed that Cousins was arrested because he was involved with people already under investigation.

"The truth of the matter is that Ben Cousins was caught up in a much wider investigation into drug dealing our organised crime people were doing," Mr O'Callaghan said.

"They were already doing that so he was caught in the night.

"There was no intention of gang crime to go out and target Mr Cousins. He simply was caught up in a whole series of things that were going on."

The drug charge against Cousins - possessing a prohibited drug, diazepam, without a prescription - was later dropped after the director of public prosecutions found it was only illegal in injectable liquid form.

At the time Assistant Commissioner John McRoberts said arresting officers had "got it wrong" and offered Cousins' an unreserved apology.


3 min read

Published

Updated

Source: AAP


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