D'Arcy case adjourned until June

April 21, 2008 SWIMMER Nick D'Arcy was ordered not to approach or contact Olympic team swimmer Stephanie Rice and four others as his assault case was adjourned until June 17.

Dressed in a dark grey suit with a dark tie and white shirt, D'Arcy arrived at Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday morning to face charges of assaulting former swimmer Simon Cowley. His father Justin and legal team arrived with him.

D'Arcy, 20, was facing two charges of assault and grievous bodily harm but that was changed by the Director of Public Prosecutions and he is now facing one charge of recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm on Cowley.

Cowley suffered a broken jaw, broken nose, fractured eye socket, crushed cheekbone and fractured palate in an altercation in Sydney last month.

In a brief hearing, Rhonda Ianna, for the DPP, requested a change in D'Arcy's bail conditions that he was no longer able to contact Rice in addition to four other unnamed witnesses that he is unable to contact.

In court, an emotionless but attentive D'Arcy spoke little, only answering "yes" when the magistrate asked him to confirm his name and if he was aware of the single charge against him.

After the changes to the bail conditions, the matter was adjourned and D'Arcy, his father and lawyer left the court.

Outside the court, D'Arcy said he remained hopeful of a positive outcome in his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to have his dumping from the Australian Olympic team to the Beijing Games overturned.

"I'm still pretty optimistic about the outcome," he said, adding he was still 100 per cent committed to competing Beijing.

D'Arcy said he was not sure what would happen to his swimming career if he did not get to the Beijing Games.

"My swimming career would take a turn for the worse if I didn't make Beijing," he said.

"I'd really have to re-evaluate where I'm at.

"I'm still in the water and I'm still training.

"Obviously I'm pretty hopeful that I'll get a positive outcome of the appeal but yes, we'll find out shortly."

D'Arcy's lawyer Jack Leitner confirmed the swimmer had lodged an appeal to the CAS in a bid to have the decision to cut him from the Olympic team overturned.

He again stated D'Arcy's request that he not be "tried by the media" over the case.

"My client will be vigorously pursuing these charges," Mr Leitner said.

"The defence will be strong (and) my client respects the court's and police's determination of this matter thus far."

"We stress again not to be tried by media and (that they) respect his rights for a fair trial."

The original charges against D'Arcy were amended to a single charge at the DPP's request because they had been incorrectly laid.

The alleged incident with Cowley happened as D'Arcy celebrated his naming on the Olympic team for Beijing following last month's Games trials.

The Queensland swimmer has since been booted off the team, with Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) boss John Coates last week saying the charges against D'Arcy had brought the sport into disrepute.