O’Keefe allegedly grabbed a woman’s throat before punching and kicking her in an altercation which occurred in his Sydney apartment.
Former Weekend Sunrise co-host and The Chase presenter, Andrew O’Keefe, has reportedly been arrested this morning after an alleged assault on a woman on Tuesday.
Police were notified about the incident, and arrested O’Keefe at 4:30am this morning, taking him to the Day Street Police Station where he is expected to be charged.
The NSW Police said O’Keefe met with a 38-year-old woman at his home at around 1:40pm on January 25.
A police statement said:
“A verbal argument ensued between the pair, before the man allegedly assaulted the woman — grabbing her by the throat, pushing her to the ground and punching her.
“The man allegedly assaulted the woman a second time — punching and kicking her — before she left the unit.”
Speaking about the story with Gareth Parker on 6PR Breakfast, entertainment reporter Peter Ford said this was a sad and troubling story in, “the downfall of Andrew O’Keefe”.
Ford said O’Keefe and the woman involved in the alleged assault were engaged in a business meeting when the altercation occurred.
He said:
“This is an allegation at this point in time. What we do know with certainty is it’s another chapter of bad publicity for Andrew… Increasingly, it seems like his life is just a complete mess.”
Ford said it seemed there were chances of redemption for O’Keefe to turn his life around when he made commitments to seeking help for his troubles early on.
“He’s tried, I mean he really has tried a lot, and at one point he even went to live in a Buddhist monastery for a few months and he thought that was going to help him – but it didn’t.”
In addition to his presenting duties at Seven, O’Keefe was the chair of White Ribbon Foundation, a domestic violence charity founded in 2007.
O’Keefe is no longer involved with the charity.
UPDATE THURSDAY, 5:00PM AEDT:
Charges have now been laid against O’Keefe on six offences, according to a police statement.
Officers commenced an investigation yesterday when notified of the incident, leading to their arrest of O’Keefe this morning.
The six offences O’Keefe has been charged with are:
- Intentionally choke etc person without consent (two counts)
- Common assault (three counts)
- Assault occasioning actual bodily harm
O’Keefe has been refused bail and is due to appear at Central Local Court on Friday.
Vision of O’Keefe obtained by The Australian being taken away in a police van shows him seemingly in a meltdown, lashing out at both police and journalists.
O’Keefe can be heard saying:
“Can you get rid of these f*****g journalists” and “for f*** sake you useless piece of s***”.
Viewer discretion is advised.
He needs rehabilitation, it’s become a pattern and he needs help with his anger issues. He can’t keep doing this to women, it’s completely unacceptable that he’s been able to walk free since his last charge.
Domestic Violence is an epidemic because of powerful men like o’keefe not being correctly reprimanded, it’s even worse when they pull a big smile on a national platform and pretend everything is fine. Surely 7 execs would have heard about his behaviour with women years ago