From Surf Icon to Outcast: The Shocking Fall of Paul ‘Sarge’ Sargeant

I still think that if sarge did that …Police should have been called, and let justice be served…instead , a report was made to the WSL….and here we are chatting about …perhaps mental disease would have been ascertained and we would be looking at this differently?

From Fred’s story: Sarge stayed in South Africa. On August 25, Adam, his fingers trembling with rage, emailed Sarge with an ultimatum: quit the tour and enrol in long-term counselling, or he will go to the ASP and the police. Adam added, “I know this is a heavy call for you because the tour is your whole life, but you are a talented writer and photographer and you can do this, you can help yourself. You do so much good for surfing and surfers, Sarge, but if you truly love these guys you will eliminate any chance of inflicting the kind of emotional damage that can affect a life forever.” Adam ended the email by saying, “The ball is in your court. Don’t write back.”
Sarge never did.

Adam heard through the grapevine that Sarge had not accepted the ultimatum. Rather, he had contacted some pro surfers and had gone into “self-defence mode”, Adam says. “I didn’t want to get emotional because I wasn’t seeking revenge. I thought I’d given him the opportunity to take responsibility for his actions, and he ignored it.”

Adam called ASP president Wayne “Rab” Bartholomew in early September, who was at the Japan WCT event, where, unbeknown to him, a rumour about it was spreading like wildfire. He says he immediately told the chairman of the ASP rules and discipline committee Robert Gerard in California, although Robert himself says he was only told of “a serious issue” regarding Sarge, and never heard the details until he, and the tour, landed in France in late September.

Meanwhile, Sarge had rung Rip Curl chairman of marketing Neil Ridgway, his former editor at Tracks, who had originally hired him to go to South Africa. “I said, ‘What are you doing still there (in South Africa)? I sent you there to shoot Tom Curren, I’m not paying for you to stay three weeks afterwards’,” Ridgway recalls. “He said, ‘Oh, we’ve been doing this and that, and, oh, by the way…” at which point he began telling Neil about the incident involving Adam. “I said, ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I was at home on a Sunday night watching Harry’s Practice with the kids, and he’s telling me this?

“He said, ‘I was drunk, I can’t remember, I’m not sure if I did it.’ I said, ‘If you can’t remember doing it, don’t go round telling people you did it, that’s stupid – it just brings you and Adam into something that may not even have happened.’ At that point I wasn’t sure what he was saying could be true. I tried to call Adam, but I couldn’t find him for another two weeks.

“I also said, ‘Sarge, if what you say is true then you may well have ended your career,’ or words to that effect.”

In France, Robert was instructed by Rab to conduct an investigation, which he did immediately, interviewing over a dozen people, and wrapping it up within two weeks. Both Adam and Sarge were interviewed numerous times over the phone.

Sarge co-operated fully with the investigation. “He acknowledged that the incident (involving Adam) happened and that he was ‘really bummed’ about it,” Robert says. “And he said that he had been to see his pastor and been baptised again to keep this from happening again.” Robert was concerned, though, that Sarge’s only attempt to apologise had been his expression of regret – for himself as well as Adam – the next day at the airport.

During the investigation, two professional surfers approached Robert privately and separately, and arranged individual, confidential meetings. On condition of anonymity, they recalled previous sexual encounters with Sarge. Both surfers were adults at the time of the incidents. They told Robert, however, that the memory of the incidents continued to disturb them.

Robert asked Sarge about these prior incidents. Sarge didn’t deny them. “I concluded that not only were the facts (concerning the Adam Blakey incident) brought to my attention accurate, but that this was not an isolated case of Sarge causing others anguish and grief,” Robert says.

However, in passing judgment on Sarge, Robert considered only the incident involving Adam. “I felt that it would be completely unfair to Sarge to consider reports from unidentified sources,” Robert says. So, based solely on the seriousness of the Blakey incident, Robert decided to revoke Sarge’s ASP press credential and to ban Sarge from the tour.

“I knew that there would be people who did not understand the decision… In fact, I have been severely criticised, chastised, ostracised and even once called un-Christian by individuals in the surfing community, many of whom I like and respect, who think my decision was unfair or too harsh…

“I am not involved in this stuff to win a popularity contest, however, and I dare say though that any reasonable person who knew what I know about this issue would say the decision was the only right thing to do. I have a completely clear conscience about what I did.”

Victim made complaint to WSL , not police, so should the WSL have pursued the complaint with the police…?

The thing I don’t understand too is Sarge was a journalist so if he felt he had been wronged surely he would be out there telling his side of the story. If people were accusing me of heinous false crimes I would be very publicly proving to everyone how and why they weren’t true

Mate he literally went into the room of a younger fella he knew and sucked his cock while he was asleep. Without knowing of all the rapes etc happening I can’t comment on them but it doesn’t excuse something as fucked up as that. If I was younger and some guy I worked with did that I would kick the living shit out him although I probably wouldn’t take it to the police. To me Sarge should be grateful he avoided jail time and I certainly don’t feel sorry for him. If you have more to add to the story then go ahead and share now that cunt Monty has brought it back up twenty years later