Shane Tuck’s widow has withdrawn from the coronial inquiry into his death.
Shane Tuck’s widow has withdrawn from a coronial inquest into his death, expressing worries about the scope of the probe.
Katherine Tuck’s lawyer, Greg Griffin, told the Coroners Court of Victoria that his client had “grave concerns” about the inquest procedure and behaviour.
Shane Tuck, 38, committed suicide in 2020.
A post-mortem study revealed that the former Richmond midfielder had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a devastating brain illness caused by repetitive blows to the head.
Only after death can the illness be detected, and it has been connected to sadness, hostility, and paranoia years after the initial injury.
It was the same condition that killed St Kilda veteran Danny Frawley in a car accident in Ballarat in 2019.
Ms Tuck’s lawyer told Coroner John Cain last year that she was unlikely to continue her involvement in the investigation after they unsuccessfully persuaded the court to widen the scope of the investigation.
Ms Tuck wanted the inquiry to focus on the adequacy of head knocks and concussion regulations when her husband was playing in the AFL, rather than the current breadth of current and future concussion protocols in both boxing and the AFL.
Mr Cain informed Ms Tuck in 2021 that he would not “engage in an exercise that involves me apportioning blame as you’re seeking to have me do in relation to what Richmond Football Club should or should not have done.”
The coroner’s job under its jurisdiction is to objectively investigate deaths and utilize the information to make recommendations to try to prevent others from dying in the same way.
Ms Tuck has subsequently been named as the lead plaintiff in a class action case filed against the AFL for concussion-related ailments.
“Unsurprisingly, our client anticipates that those proceedings are much more likely to provide a just outcome in respect of the death of her husband and the father of her children,” Griffins Lawyers wrote in a letter to the court on Wednesday.
Griffins Lawyers is also in charge of the class action complaint.
In her letter, Ms Tuck stated that she was “frustrated by the Coroner’s decision to severely limit the scope of the investigation, and the refusal to give any consideration to the policies, guidelines, rules and/or practices of the AFL in respect of concussion and head injuries as were in place at the time of Shane Tuck’s playing career, and whether those arrangements were reasonable and proportionate to address the risk of CTE” .
“Her concerns in that regard were not aided by the submissions made by the AFL and the Richmond Football Club to that issue, which sought to encourage the Court’s narrow approach,” she added.
“In the circumstances, Mrs Tuck considers her further involvement in the matter to be an arid exercise.”
Mr Griffin outlined a number of his client’s concerns in the letter to the court, including changes to the draft terms of reference, not wanting to continue paying for what they described as “little more than a public relations exercise for the AFL,” and not receiving a copy of the post-mortem report.
Shane Tuck had a brief career as a professional boxer after retiring from his 173-game AFL career. Ms Tuck’s letter to the court stated that accusations that athletics was to blame for his CTE were “greatly upsetting.”
“It is a matter of great regret to the widow that the circumstances of the investigation into the death of her husband, and the father of their two children, are such that our client can no longer in good conscience participate in that process,” the letter goes on to say.
The inquest is scheduled for June of this year.
