Corey Webster suspended for one game

Statement from SKYCITY Breakers General Manager Dillon Boucher:

As you will be aware and as was confirmed by the club yesterday, Corey Webster was on Tuesday night arrested and charged with a minor assault, as a result of an incident that took place in Takapuna that night.

As a consequence of this, Corey has a court appearance set for next week. That police investigation and the fact that Corey will appear before the court means there are limits as to what we can say or add to the situation.

However, the club has done its best to investigate what occurred and to gather as much information as we can, we have done little else over the past 24 hours. This is the very least of our responsibilities to the team and coaching staff, to our fans and to all of our stakeholders and indeed to Corey himself.

At this time I would like to stress that Corey maintains his innocence of the charge and will defend himself vigorously through the court process. We will assist the police and the courts and Corey though this process and allow due process to play out.

However, the club has found reason to suspend Corey for his actions, not for the charge alleged by the police that he maintains his innocence from - that is as I mentioned for the courts to decide, but in his breach of our team and club values, totally separate to and having no bearing on the alleged assault charge.

Specifically this refers to decisions made around how best to recover from a road trip last weekend and at the same time prepare for our next game on Friday against Illawarra, being out until after midnight is not in the best interests of the team. Corey has also breached our values in the way in which he has communicated with the club about the incident on Tuesday night.

You will know that amongst our values at this club are honesty and courage, in our view Corey has let himself, his team mates and the club down in the way in which he has handled the situation. He has not lived up to the one team value that we have at the club.

It has been decided that he will be suspended for one game, effective immediately, with Corey to miss this Fridays clash with the Illawarra Hawks at the North Shore Events Centre. This hurts the team, it hurts us as a club, but most importantly this will hurt Corey and should serve to reinforce the need for all of us to make good decisions in everything we do.

Meantime we will continue to support him and we ask that the media respects his need for privacy at this time as he focuses on a court appearance next week, at which time he will state his side of the story through the appropriate channels.

Dillon Boucher

General Manager

SKYCITY Breakers

Next Home Game

Friday 2 December

V Illawarra Hawks

North Shore Events Centre

7:30pm Tip Off

6:00pm Doors Open

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Basketball New Zealand