Michael Braun: Ex-West Coast Eagles star has charges for breaching violence restraining order dropped

Prosecutors have dropped three criminal charges against West Coast premiership star Michael Braun — who had been due to fight accusations that he repeatedly breached a violence restraining order. Mr Braun was charged with repeatedly breaching the order, which The West Australian understands was taken out against him by his former wife Bree Johnson. The couple had reported an “amicable split” in late 2021 after their multimillion-dollar Trigg home went on the market. But by March 2022, Mr Braun was in court accused of breaching the VRO three times in 10 days. The 44-year-old entered not guilty pleas to the charges and was due to go on trial in Perth Magistrates Court in October. But on Tuesday, WA Police said they were dropping all the charges after negotiations with lawyers. Mr Braun’s lawyer Gerald Yin told the court that he believed it was an “appropriate” action. “There was never any allegation of violence — these were charges about communications regarding the welfare of the children,” Mr Yin said. Mr Braun was also awarded costs in the case. Mr Braun played 228 games for West Coast before his retirement in 2008, with the highlight being his starring role in the epic 2006 grand final victory against Sydney. But his career was also not without controversy. In 2007, Mr Braun found himself in hot water with the AFL after he publicly told his teammates, “Let’s have a f...... good year”, in his acceptance speech after being awarded the Ross Glendinning medal. The team was already under the microscope for bad behaviour after a tumultuous season. Explaining his choice of language in 2012, Mr Braun told The West Australian: “I knew where I was but I really forgot (the broadcast) was going around to 500,000 people Australia-wide. “I was just talking to the boys and obviously when you’re talking to the boys, you don’t really watch your tongue and you drop the f-bomb.” The on-air gaffe earnt him a $5000 fine from the AFL. “It was the most expensive medal I’ve ever won, by a long way,” Mr Braun said at the time. In the same year, Mr Braun was prompted to vehemently deny using performance enhancing drugs after bombshell comments from Brisbane star Jason Akermanis. Akermanis wrote in a newspaper article saying that he suspected an opposition player was using performance-enhancing drugs because he “ran like Superman”. ASADA subsequently examined Mr Braun’s drug test history, as well as target-testing him and reviewing available intelligence, eventually concluding he was clean. “That review has determined that there is no evidence at this time to support any allegation of the use of performance-enhancing substances by the player,” ASADA said.