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Home / Sport / League / NRL

Toxic texts: Inside the love-hate relationship of Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Jessica Peris

Herald online
5 Mar, 2016 06:21 PM8 mins to read

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Shaun Kenny-Dowall and his partner Jessica Peris in a photo sourced from his Instagram @skennydowall

Shaun Kenny-Dowall and his partner Jessica Peris in a photo sourced from his Instagram @skennydowall

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He scolded her for taking cocaine, accused her of cheating on him and threatened to throw her out of his house.

She broke promises, asked "are you going to hit me?" when she was on a night out later than he wanted, and tried to fix their relationship issues with wild make-up sex.

These are just some of the text messages exchanged between NRL star Shaun Kenny-Dowall and Jessica Peris during their toxic three year relationship.

The Daily Telegraph has obtained a cache of the 40,000 texts the pair sent between July 25, 2014, and June 28, 2015, which showed how their bipolar relationship swung between sharing loving exchanges to controlling abuse.

The texts were used as evidence in the failed domestic violence case against Kenny-Dowall, which ended last Monday when the 28-year-old Roosters and New Zealand international player was found not guilty on all 11 charges.

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They became evidence when Ms Peris gave her phone to police believing the texts would show Kenny-Dowall to be an abusive partner.

One of the recurring themes of the texts was Kenny-Dowall slinging derogatory slurs at Mr Peris and accusing her of taking drugs when she stayed out late and he waited at home.

Others included Kenny-Dowall accusing Ms Peris not being truthful to her word, being lax with her running training and repeatedly telling her he wanted their relationship to end because of the impact she had on his life emotionally and financially.

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Ms Peris either tried to smooth things over, denied their problems were as bad as he claimed or fired back with abuse.

After one fight, Kenny Dowall texted Ms Peris and, apparently joking, said "at least I didnt hit you ... lol" before adding "f**k I wanted to ... lol" and "but it's not worth it".

In another text, Kenny-Dowall told Ms Peris "ur a f***king wannabe" while at another time wrote: "U and ur son can f**k off" before adding "out of my life".

They exchanged more texts and Kenny-Dowall said "trying to be something ur not" and "I'm in the other room".

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Ms Peris then said "unless you want to f*** I'm not interested in your gibberish".

Kenny-Dowall responded: "Lol yeah of course that's about all ur good for".

Ms Peris sent emojis repeating the offer and he said "Ur answer for everything ... Coz that's all u got".

It was a continuing theme, with Kenny-Dowall telling her on another occasion "what do you do for me Jess give me nothing but headaches and u try and smooth it over with having sex u have no idea about life".

On another occasion Ms Peris offered to make a sex tape and followed up with a pornographic description of what it should contain.

The pair met in Bali in 2012 and Ms Peris moved from the Northern Territory to live in Sydney with Kenny-Dowall before their relationship ended bitterly and played out its final chapter in court.

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In April 2015, Kenny-Dowall texted Ms Peris the morning after she stayed out at Kings Cross nightclub Hugo's into the early hours of Easter Sunday and chastised her for taking cocaine.

"U don't need to do drugs every time u go out either Jess," Kenny-Dowall wrote. "It's all or nothing for u no in between".

After 20 minutes of texting, Ms Peris said he was being unfair and claimed she rarely goes out because of her son.

"If you don't want me to ever touch it then fine Shaun I won't ... I'm sorry that I went out and I can see your reasons for being pissed off," she texted. "I obviously had a lot to drink yesterday and didn't make the right decision and I'm sorry Shaun."

After Ms Peris accused him of being selfish, Kenny-Dowall told her she had ruined their Easter and texted: "You do this every single f**king time it's a joke mate" and "(You) don't know what a real relationship is about".

In another text, Kenny-Dowall told Ms Peris he was kicking her out of his home and said she had caused the breakup "all for rack", a reference to using cocaine.

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In one text sent at 2.06am on an unspecified date, Kenny-Dowall told Ms Peris "Ud rather ... rack (than) be in this relationship says a lot". He then added "And u could come home but you still choose to be out".

A month after their breakup in June 2015, Ms Peris made domestic violence allegations against Kenny-Dowall, which landed him in court on a long list of charges including kicking, hair-pulling, headbutting, stalking and intimidation.

The texts became evidence when Ms Peris handed her phone to police at the Eastern Beaches Local Area Command when making the domestic violence complaint in July 2015.
In court last week, Magistrate Grogin found Ms Peris, who is the daughter of Federal Labor politician and ex-Olympian Nova Peris, to be an unreliable and an evasive witness. Ms Peris was the only witness to the alleged assaults and Mr Grogin did not believe her version.

In one text from May 2015, the pair started off on good terms with Ms Peris telling Kenny-Dowall "I'm keen to love you for ever" with the league player replying "I'm down with that".
Later, Kenny-Dowall got upset when Ms Peris was out with friends he arrived home.
He texted: "Oi I'm at home f****t came to be with you".

In another exchange in May, Kenny-Dowall, who was waiting at home while Ms Peris was at a Sydney nightspot, sent her a text saying "your word is dog sh*t to me" and then told her she had broken a "pinky promise".

Kenny-Dowall then sent a text that said "12.30 deadline up to you" along with a picture of a bed.

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Ms Peris tried to convince Kenny-Dowall to join her but he replied "Don't come back here".
He then texted "all ur sh*t is guna be packed" and sent a picture of an empty cupboard.
He later texted "kidding urself", "all for rack", "one time too many", "ur on your own now Jess" and don't come back here".

At one point, Ms Peris replied with a text that said "I'm with the girls".

Following more abusive texts, Kenny-Dowall texted Ms Peris at 2am and said he had been home for three hours, and she responded: "are you going to hit me if I come home Shaun?"
He responded by texting "hurry the f**k up". Ms Peris then wrote "are you Shaun?", to which he replied "u r making it worse".

Ms Peris then sent several texts saying she was scared of him.

Kenny-Dowall replied "u r making me mad because u don't give a f**k" before accusing Ms Peris of taking cocaine and lying about who she was with.

They continued to fight and Ms Peris explained that she went to a friend's house to fill in time until Kenny-Dowall got home.

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Two months earlier, the pair appeared to be at breaking point when a fight flared up.

About 3pm he texted her and said "I don't like who u are Jess" and "U need to go live ur own life".

In a series of texts, Ms Peris replied: "I'm trying to help do the little things and having a miscarriage last week kinda made things tense when they were going good".

He later texted back: "I don't think u are the person I want to invest my time and life to".

She replied "Well I don't think that's right. Because we had a connection like no other when we first met. We just have to find that again".

He replied: "your a f***ing dreamer".

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He later explained their issues are piling up and that both had gone "backwards" personally and financially since she moved to Sydney.

As part of his defence, Kenny-Dowall tendered to the court details of almost $100,000 he spent on Ms Peris since she moved in with him.

This included $10,000 in relocation costs, $44,000 in rental payments. According to the document tendered in court Mr Peris "owed" almost $60,000 of the total.

He replied: "A simple text wouldnt of gone astray f***head". She wrote back: "Abusing me for no reason".

In the lead up to the Anzac test he Kenny-Dowall accused Ms Peris of cheating on him with a friend of a man named in the texts as "Roger".

She denied it and texted "I would never do anything behind your back" to which he replied "yeah cuz you've already been with him fuckwit" and "can't wait to see the end of you".
He followed up by texting that he had throught of kicking her out.

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She replied: "yeah no worries I'm going to need a week or two to organise myself."
Later in the exchange, the pair appeared to have made up.

-News.com.au

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