Jeff Farmer - poster boy for all that's wrong with binge drinking!

Jeff Farmer has hit the headlines again, this time for punching a security officer at Paramount nightclub. For those of you who don't know, Jeff Farmer is an AFL player for the Fremantle Football Club (also known the Dockers), and the Paramount is a nightclub in the dodgy nightspot of Northbridge in Perth. The latest in a long line of incidents for the man...

About two or three months ago, roundabout six-ish in the morning, a colleague and I at the casino were alerted via cleaning staff that a male was passed out in one of the toilets on the main gaming floor. Upon entering the toilets, we witnessed an Aboriginal male in his late 20s rolling around on the floor, mumbling incoherently. He was surrounded by two or three people. When we asked them what was going on, they said 'He's Jeff Farmer - he's had too much to drunk'. This was pretty obvious, since nobody in their right mind would roll around on a toilet floor, in a casino, early in the morning, if they could help it.

We told them Mr. Farmer would have to leave, and leave now. They requested that we take him out the side entrance, opposite the Irish pub, rather than the main entrance. This was, they said, to avoid embarrassment or negative publicity being brought upon the AFL player. Resisting the temptation to argue that any embarrassment would be wholly self-inflicted, we acquiesced and started to 'guide' Mr. Farmer towards the exit.

This became an ordeal in itself - Farmer couldn't walk straight, stumbled all over the place and seemed quite insistent on trying to play on every electronic gaming machine he walked past, a lack of coinage seemingly not a hinderace to his efforts.

At a set of steps that led up to a raised section of the floor in front of the entrance, Farmer took one of his shoes off and planted it slap bang in the middle of the floor. He took a few steps back, crossed his arms, stared at the shoe and went 'Nup', or something equally incomprehensible. I encouraged him to put his shoe back on, but it appeared as though he was lining up to kick the improvised footy through an imaginary set of goal posts. Eventually, through short but frustrating negotiation, we persuaded him to put his shoe back on, and continued our slow trek towards the entrance, now about 20 metres away.

Just as we were about to walk through the entrance, Farmer darted off to the left, down a bank of electronic gaming machines. Again, he tried to play the machines, and again we had to repeat our requests for him to leave. His mates finally coaxed him out of the casino. We informed them and Farmer that he was barred for 24 hours, and informed our base to this effect. Farmer and co. sat on the steps of the Irish pub nearby, and that was where we left them.

Now, from what I hear, Farmer put in an appearance at the casino's nightclub on the same night of the ill-fated incident at Paramount this weekend gone. Whilst the exact time is not confirmed, what is known is that security staff approached Farmer and asked him to leave due to his clear intoxication. Allegedly, he then attempted to run away from security staff. You can't take people anywhere these days!