It was the deal for two grams of cocaine that sent Brett Finch tumbling from the heights of rugby league stardom to being a social pariah and staring down the barrel of a jail sentence.
At the height of his career, Finch was a star – a premiership winner, a State of Origin hero who in retirement carved out a successful media career.
But now, aged 41, his reputation is in tatters after he pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to make available child abuse material.
Finch says that today he rarely leaves his house, has been abused in the street, abandoned by his friends and is having to subsist on Centrelink payments.
After a distinguished on-field career, playing what he described as the toughest sport in the world, Finch fell into addiction in retirement as he failed to adjust to the outside world.
And as he gets set to learn his fate next month, details of his downfall can now be revealed.
FASTMEET
The saga was set in motion hundreds of kilometres from Finch’s Sydney home, in Victoria, in November 2020.
At the time, Victorian police were honing in on a child sex offender and began monitoring a telephone sex chat service, FastMeet, which would soon become central to Finch’s case.
As a result of their investigations, Victorian officers passed on to interstate colleagues details of people who had used FastMeet to exchange child abuse material.
FastMeet is a sex chat service for gay and bisexual men.
Users call a number for their nominated city – they have services for all capital cities as well as operating in New Zealand.
“Hi, welcome to the male-to-male chat club where guys get off with guys,” says a greeting when users call the number.
Users can interact with other men by leaving a voice greeting and waiting for them to respond.
FREE COCAINE
Finch’s offending unfolded when he visited his drug dealer looking to buy cocaine, he told Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court this week.
Following his retirement from rugby league, Finch’s life spiralled into drug addiction as he struggled to find meaning and purpose.
By his own admission, at the height of his drug problem, each week he was using up to 25 grams of cocaine, which has a street value of about $300 per gram.
When his dealer said that she only had two grams of cocaine, Finch asked if she knew where she could get some more.
So she called her supplier, who lived nearby, according to Finch.
During that same call, as well as asking for cocaine for Finch, the dealer asked if the supplier had methamphetamine for her own use.
According to Finch, the supplier said he didn’t.
But he said that he had used “FastMeet” to score ice.
“He said he didn’t (have any methamphetamine) but he indicated a chat line where he had obtained meth in the past,” Finch told the court.
Given it was a male chat service, Finch agreed to leave a message on behalf of his female dealer.
In exchange for helping her source a phone number to obtain meth, Finch says he was given two grams of cocaine for free by his dealer.
“I was going to receive free cocaine,” Finch told Crown prosecutor David Jordan when asked about his motivation for taking part.
‘HYPERSEXUAL’
According to Finch’s version of events, it was one of two seeds that were planted in his mind that led to his offending.
The other came during one of his three stints in rehabilitation.
During group counselling sessions, he told the court, he heard gay men talk about how taking methamphetamine made them “hypersexual”.
And, in November 2020, Finch claimed that he was “desperate” to score drugs.
He said during the Covid pandemic, dealers weren’t driving on the roads and he had called every dealer in his contacts only to come up dry.
So, according to Finch, he turned to FastMeet.
Over a three-month period from November 6 to January 2021, he left seven messages for other users that expressed a desire to engage in sexual acts with teenagers or boys as young as 12.
Each of the voice messages that Finch left for other users began in a similar way – with a description of himself.
“Yeah, hey mate, married, 39, good looking guy, smooth muscular bod, 6 foot, 85 kilos, 7 inch cut c**k,” he said in one message.
He also included references to desires to engage in sexual activity with young boys.
Those portions of the messages are too vulgar and disturbing to print.
“When I was leaving these messages, I had the blinkers on, my only goal was to source drugs,” Finch told the court this week.
He was asked by his barrister Michael Smith why he left multiple child abuse messages over several months.
“In the hope I could obtain cocaine,” Finch said.
By Finch’s own admission, the messages were “sick” and he was “disgusted” in himself.
According to Finch, he believed that if he left a “twisted” message on the service, those that replied would be likely to be high on methamphetamine and would be able to help him score cocaine.
This is despite not discussing drugs in any of the messages he left.
“I didn’t want to open the conversation ‘do you have any ice, do you have any methamphetamine’?” Finch told the court.
‘SICK F**K’
Finch said he stopped using the service when a man replied to one of his messages inviting him to meet up and engage in the sexual abuse of a child.
“It made me sick, I was disgusted. I instantly told him he was a sick f**k and to f**k off. What I said in those messages was horrendous,” Finch said.
Finch vehemently denied that the messages were fantasies.
He also denied that he had a sexual interest in children but rather the sick messages were the culmination of a desperate attempt to feed his drug addiction.
“Have you ever had a sexual interest in children?” Finch was asked by Mr Smith.
“Never,” Finch replied.
ROCK BOTTOM
Following his retirement from rugby league, Finch’s life has been plagued by struggles with drug use, addiction and mental health issues.
In October 2019, he entered a mental health facility after an incident on a flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast.
Concerns were raised when he was spotted with a bloody nose.
While passengers later told The Daily Telegraph that he was not abusive, they described him as appearing paranoid and how he refused to get off the plane.
He spoke openly about his struggles post-playing and being unable to recapture the highs of first-grade rugby league.
The Dally M halfback of the year in 2004, Finch played in two grand final losses for the Sydney Roosters in 2003 and 2004 before winning a grand final with a star-studded Melbourne team in 2009, though that title was struck from the record books as a result of the Storm’s salary cap cheating.
His crowning moment came in 2006 when, after being called into camp at the 11th hour, Finch kicked the winning field goal for NSW in State of Origin game one.
He played 270 NRL games across stints at Canberra, the Roosters, Parramatta and Melbourne, as well as playing 60 games in the English Super League.
Finch took up a career as a commentator with Fox Sports, 2GB and Channel 9 in retirement but departed all of them amid his personal problems.
Ray Hadley, who worked alongside Finch at 2GB as part of the station’s NRL coverage, recalled on radio this week how his mate’s position at the station became untenable.
“When he started work for me, good young bloke, a bit of a scallywag, he became, unfortunately, most unreliable and basically told me a plethora of lies week after week,” Hadley said.
“At the time I had no idea that he was using drugs.
“You hear all sorts of things but I thought he was struggling with his mental health … He didn’t turn up for work, he always had a last-minute excuse.
“In fact he’d ring me from the side of the road saying ‘I can’t cope, I can’t come’. And we’d be left shorthanded.”
AWAITING SENTENCE
Finch was arrested in the early hours of December 14 last year at his Sans Souci home and has been on bail since.
According to a statement of agreed facts, following his arrest he told officers he may have left the messages when he was “twisted” and if he had done so it was just “sh*t talk”.
Police arrested seven other men – aged between 34 and 71 – in raids across Sydney, Coffs Harbour and Shoal Bay.
Finch was charged with seven counts of using a carriage service to make available child abuse material; however six charges were withdrawn.
In August, he pleaded guilty to one count of using a carriage service to make available child abuse material.
Mr Smith argued that he shouldn’t be jailed because he was at risk of being violently targeted by hardened criminals.
As well, according to Mr Smith, his offences did not involve the exchange of child abuse images or videos, which have very real victims.
Mr Smith told the court this week there was no evidence of Finch having ever tried to access child abuse material and when he was arrested, he volunteered his phone and computer to officers.
He also said Finch’s offending was driven by his addiction and his best chance at recovery was via supervision and treatment in the community.
“It’s clear this man doesn’t have an interest in children, it’s been an unfortunate incident, but all we will say is the dangers of drugs and addiction have put him in this predicament,” Finch’s lawyer Paul McGirr said outside court on Tuesday.
Finch will be sentenced by judge Phillip Mahony on November 23.
