An old Home and Away star accused of putting a policewoman in a headlock and repeatedly punching her has avoided a criminal trial and will be dealt with under the Mental Health Act.

In October 2019, during a violent scuffle in the city of Surry Hills, Sydney, Joel McIlroy allegedly pounced on a 29-year-old senior constable and led to the officer being taken to the hospital. 

Initially, the 47-year-old was charged with two counts of police assault, one of police resistance and one of them willfully obstructing an officer in executing his duties.


And he was charged with assaulting a cop. with actual physical harm, an offense with a maximum penalty of seven years in jail.

 Magistrate Jennifer Giles told the Silver Logie nominee at Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court that he was involved “in an incident” that had “absolutely nothing to do with him.”

Hand down her decision on Wednesday, Ms Giles said that she did not want to grant Section 32 of the Mental Health Act but felt that it was more appropriate given her solid medical network and help.

 ‘It is indeed a rather severe incident of gratuitous, willfully, vengeful, and probably even sexist violence by the defendant against the police as he told them to mind his own business and leave, She said that.

In 2007, McIlroy was diagnosed with Huntington’s illness, a rare degenerative condition of the brain.
Medical experts have given him ten years left to live, of which five will be in care.

 At the time of the alleged assault, the court heard that he had experienced a significant decline in cognitive flexibility and had fallen into a severe range of depressive symptoms.

On October 22, 2019, McIlroy was wandering down Buckingham Street when he stumbled on two plain-clothed officers making drug use arrests.

After the former actor asked the silent duo in the gutter if they were ‘OK,’ he asked the officers to identify themselves.

 ‘How can I know that you’re a policeman who isn’t in a uniform? ‘After seeing their badge and warrant cards, he said, the court heard them.

 


Told continually moved on, he allegedly barked his shoulder in one of the constables before punching her head several times.

When the other female officer stepped into the scuffle, he allegedly grabbed one of the officers by his neck, and they all fell to the ground.

A concerned bystander stepped in to assist, allegedly witnessing McIlroy on top of one of the women and holding her by the neck.

McIlroy was finally handcuffed, but ‘childishly’ was deadweight, requiring four officers to take him to their truck to Surry Hills Police Station.

 The video of McIlroy’s arrest allegedly shows him yelling during the struggle: ‘I can’t breathe’ and ‘get your hand off my face.’

‘No one pretends that for all constables and the poor selfless community-minded gentleman who stepped in to assist the constables, the violence was not shameful or terrifying,’ she said.

Ms. Giles said it was annoying that his defense made the mental health application 11 months later, given that McIlroy had Huntington’s for over a decade.

On Tuesday, McIlroy applied for five charges to be dealt with under the Psychological Health (Forensic Provisions) Act, Section 32.

‘The police would not be assaulted in a perfect world, and people wouldn’t even have their brains die at 47,’ she said.

Ms Giles also pointed to the unusualness of the case, where McIlroy was said to have been unfit for cross-examination in the witness box due to his cognitive degeneration.

‘This is not section 32 that I wanted to grant. Most of yesterday, I tried to write the refusal decision,’ she said.

After being reassured through medical experts that care would preclude more offenses, it considered it Appropriate to be dealt within the context of an act rather than in the form of criminal law.

McIlroy appeared at Home and Away from 1994 to 2006, the year he was nominated. As the most famous actor on Australian television.

His character Flynn Saunders was married to Sally Fletcher of Kate Ritchie. McIlroy also appeared on the television series Water Rats, All Saints, and Heartbreak High.