It's not OK to hit someone. Ever!
these are words to a TV ad campaign against violence,a TV presenter has fallen from grace because of the telling of his violence against a former partner where he broke her back in 4 places.
My question is, Why isn't he in jail?
One rule for celebrities and one rule for everyone else.
It's not OK to hit someone.
Here's what I think. If you assault a woman by kicking her on the ground until her back breaks, the question isn't whether you lose your job. The question is how long you spend in jail.
Let's see. Man kicks woman on floor. Four broken vertebrae, four months in a wheelchair. Assault. Why don't we start with grievous bodily harm and work down?
The reason Tony Veitch paid his ex- partner $170,000 was because it was a bargain. An absolute steal.
His ex-partner's reasons to take the deal don't come into it.
Yes, there are emotional complexities when someone you know and love assaults you. This is why wife- beaters (and child abusers) stay out of jail. This is why crimes by loved ones go unreported. Forgiveness, loyalty and shame work in mysterious ways.
But violence is violence, assault is assault, regardless of the location. In the home, doesn't make it better. Handier, yes, but not better. In this case, kicking a woman on the floor and breaking her back is not made better by the fact it was your bedroom floor. The law applies in every room, in every suburb. That bedroom is a crime scene, and the payoff was a cover-up to pervert the course of justice.
When I visualise this event, it makes me queasy.
Imagine if there was a video of it. Do I need to spell it out again? Woman on floor. Meaning assault has already happened. Then, man kicking her in the back till back breaks.
Of course, straight away, he's horrified. Regretful.
Aren't they all?
This is followed by negotiations about the story they will tell when, hours later, he takes her to hospital.
Imagine it's in the street. Imagine if a guy kicks a woman he doesn't know, in the back, in the street. What would the justice system do? Even if the victim was unable or unwilling to talk about it, the justice system would hunt this guy down.
Here's the question: should a violent criminal be able to buy his way out of prison?
The fact the wifebeater, the bully, the criminal, is a popular celebrity should be irrelevant. This is how he can afford the hush money.
But do we want one justice system for the rich and one for the poor?
Do we want to live in a society where victims prefer to sidestep the justice system for money? Maybe money should be exacted on top of the justice system. Imagine the scale of damages she could sue for if this was America. A hundred grand wouldn't touch the sides.
I can't believe his employers knew and did nothing. Talk about hollow men. Do they have no conscience, no sense of right and wrong?
Could they not make the leap of imagination to wonder what they would feel if this woman was one of theirs? Once again, loyalty, and worse, commercial interests, twist what's right. Would they have turned a blind eye if the victim had been the celebrity instead?
At his press conference he said he didn't want this to play out in public. Of course he didn't. Because then the truth would be known. The police would arrest him. Not wanting something to play out in public is why murderers hide bodies. If it plays out in public, you go to jail.
The phrase suggests this incident was part of their private life. Something two adults could consent to.
But this is not a victimless crime. This is not a man dressing up as a woman on Sunset Boulevard and soliciting. This is not Hugh Grant with Divine Brown. This is not the cast of Celebrity Treasure Island doing drugs. This is a vicious crime, a violent assault.
If someone did this to a woman behind the counter of a dairy, we'd be outraged.
Do celebrity criminals have some special level of sensitivity, whereby a press conference expressing remorse from a statement wipes the slate?
Good grief.
And really, would the press conference have been held if the media hadn't broken the story?
The hush money is an admission of how vicious this attack was. This was a criminal act. The criminal should be brought to justice.
As for his jobs, well, his shameless employers obviously didn't think it was a problem that he was a wife-beater.
But I imagine crossing live might be a bit harder when he's in jail.
taken from Stuff.co.nz, report on Tony Veitch case.
The Veitch affair has put New Zealand's media in the full glare of the camera. Adam Dudding reports.
Efforts by Tony Veitch and his employer The Radio Network (TRN) to manage the sports presenter's fall from grace have demonstrated the resources a media organisation can call into play when something goes wrong close to home. Yet at the same time, the mixed messages emerging from TVNZ suggest that Veitch's television employer is finding the task far more irksome.
