Former North Melbourne player and coach Dean Laidley will appear in a Melbourne court this morning charged with stalking.
Laidley was arrested on May 2 and accused of stalking a woman he met on Tinder. The 53-year-old was granted bail on Monday to attend a rehab facility.
Court documents from his bail hearing, obtained by news.com.au, accuse him of repeatedly calling the woman and attending her property, where he allegedly took photographs of her home and of the home’s underground carpark.
He allegedly phoned the woman 43 times on May 2 and loitered outside or near her home before police were called and he was arrested.
But a month earlier he is accused of using a mobile phone “in a manner which a reasonable person would regard as being menacing”, attending the woman’s workplace with flowers and confronting her in her driveway.
“On April 4 at approximately 1am, the accused attended the victim’s address and rang the doorbell several times,” the documents allege.
“At 8am, the victim returned home to find the accused in her driveway and was stopping the victim from entering her building. The accused became abusive towards the victim and called her a ‘sl*t’ and ‘c**t’.
“The accused then phoned the victim and began to verbally abuse her, saying, ‘I am going to ram you with the car when you leave.’”
On May 1, the day before Laidley was arrested, he allegedly went to the victim’s workplace and put flowers on her car.
At 5.25pm on May 2, the woman called triple-0 alleging Laidley was parked across the road from her house.
Police attended and stayed at the home for an hour.
At 8.30pm they were called again and Laidley was arrested and taken to St Kilda Police Station.
During a search at the station, police allegedly “located a small ziplock bag containing 0.43 grams of a white crystal substance believed to be methylamphetamine” on the accused.
Laidley was interviewed at the station where police asked him about “dozens of photographs” of the victim’s building, vehicle and underground carpark.
During the interview, he was “extremely emotional and distraught”, police said.
Former teammates, coaches and club doctors have lined up with letters of reference for the 53-year-old, who is battling longstanding mental health issues.
He was granted bail last month to attend a rehab facility.