Vorchheimer’s Attackers Plead Guilty

MELBOURNE, Australia — Two more footballers have pleaded guilty to verbally assaulting Menachem Vorchheimer as he walked home from synagogue in October last year.

After a number of lengthy adjournments, James Dalton and Matthew Cuthbert appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday morning to answer a range of charges. They will return to court for sentencing on Thursday.

Cuthbert pleaded guilty to a charge of using insulting words. He admitted to saying, “I’m not going to apologise to no f***ing Jew.”

Dalton meanwhile, pleaded guilty to one count of offensive behaviour but had a theft charge dropped. The AJN understands that it was Dalton, the captain of the Ocean Grove Football Club, who snatched Vorchheimer’s kippa and hat from his head. The magistrate Julian Fitzgerald was told that another passenger on the bus later threw the hat and kippa onto the street.

Vorchheimer, who has been actively pursuing both the footballers for the hurt they have caused him and his family and the bus driver, who is a policeman, for not intervening in the incident, spoke outside court.

“I think the main thing is that people understand right from wrong and whoever did it comes forward…and face criminal charges,” he said.

Lawyers for Dalton told the court that the 28-year-old’s action was “spur of the moment” and not intended to be anything more than joke.

When questioned by the police following the incident, which took place on Simchat Torah last year, Dalton said that he did not understand the importance of Vorchheimer’s hat. The court heard that Dalton feels “gutted” over the incident and had written a letter of apology to Vorchheimer shortly after the incident. The letter was given to a board member at the Ocean Grove Football Club but was never passed on to Vorchheimer.

Manny Waks, the executive officer of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission, said his organisation would request that the Ocean Grove Football Club sanction the players involved in the incident and said he found it hard to believe that Dalton felt remorse over the attack.

“We reject Mr Dalton’s lawyer’s assertions that he was remorseful,” Waks said.

He said that if Dalton was truly remorseful he would which of his fellow players physically attacked Vorchheimer.

Vorchheimer, a 33-year-old father, suffered lacerations to his face during the attack, which took place in the heart of Caulfield. Cuthbert had been charged with a variety of offences including recklessly causing injury but those charges were dropped on Monday.

Daryl Wraith, Cuthbert’s lawyer, told the court that his client’s involvement in the incident was minimal. Wraith said that Cuthbert only used offensive language after he had been falsely accused of assaulting Vorchheimer by another passenger on the bus.

Wraith also argued that his client’s statements were not audible outside the bus and the comment was brought to the attention of investigating police by Simon Christian, a fellow player who was convicted in April of using insulting language towards Vorchheimer.

Prosecutor Ray Elston SC said that the football club had taken “sparse” steps to deal with the issue.
He described how the attacks were deeply offensive to Vorchheimer, an Orthodox Jew and the child of a Holocaust survivor, and shocked his children, one of whom was three and the other six years old at the time.

Since the attack, Vorchheimer, his wife Shoshi and children have spent a large amount of time in New York City. Vorchheimer said that this is to help his children overcome the incident and spend some time in a positive environment.

In April this year, Simon Christian was fined $1000 after he admitted yelling “Go Nazis” out of the bus at Vorchheimer.