When police charged an NRL star, one detective broke ranks

Kurt Hayward spent 23 years in NSW Police before retiring four years ago, disillusioned with the force. (Four Corners: Rob Hill)

As rugby league player Tom Starling, torn shirt, bloodied face and concussed, paced his police cell, a veteran detective's phone started to ring.

It was a Sunday morning in December 2020 and Detective Sergeant Kurt Hayward was at home.

"I received a few calls that an NRL player had been arrested by the local police," Hayward told Four Corners.

Hayward, who spent 23 years in the NSW police, is speaking publicly about the Starling incident for the first time because he believes he witnessed a failure of the system to hold officers to account.

Starling was arrested during a 21st party at the Shady Palms bar on the NSW Central Coast, when police responded to a confrontation between bar security and Starling and his family.

Officers from the local police station and the riot squad alleged Starling and others had violently attacked them and that, during the melee, Starling had even tried to grab a detective's gun from his holster.

Starling was released on Sunday morning from the Gosford police station. A journalist and camera operator were waiting to capture the latest NRL player accused of behaving badly.

As Starling ran the media gauntlet, he clutched a police document stating he had been charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.

The next day, Detective Sergeant Hayward walked into the police station and saw another officer viewing the CCTV footage of the incident. He watched it.

Starling is dragged out of the bar backwards by officers. A tall well-built riot squad officer, Sergeant Evan Prowse, punches him at least twice, knocking out the Canberra Raiders hooker.

Still held aloft by police, Starling is then hit several more times while either unconscious or barely conscious by a local officer, Senior Constable Steven Brown.

"The first thing I said was, 'it looks like [a police officer's] going to hit the dock,'" Hayward said, in reference to the police cells where people are held after being charged with a criminal offence.

"You could see Starling had already been knocked unconscious and was floppy and Brown throws those punches at the unconscious body," he said.

Hayward then read the police report on the incident. To him, it didn't at all match with the vision he had just seen.

"[It was] a classic case of overcharging and [police] trying to justify their actions by overcharging and saying things that just didn't happen."

He hoped that once his superiors saw the CCTV footage, they would launch an interna