Posted by Lou. The time is 11.18am here in London, UK.
For all the rhetoric against domestic violence and the advertising campaigns that have prominently featured on NZ screens as long as I can remember, nothing is going to change when the judiciary continue to take a piss-poor and lax attitude towards punishing offenders.
This guy choked his pregnant partner into near unconsciousness and punched her in the face, before preventing her from seeking help by using a knife to cut their phone cord, and later shredding her possessions, all over a pair of shoes, all following on from a history of volatility, and he gets slapped with a $750 fine to go along with some paltry costs and orders to go to an anger management course. Gee, that'll teach him.
How about backing up that rhetoric with some action, hey?
Uggh.
Don't google this. The Taranaki Daily News have just put up a story (via Stuff) with a sporting pun in the first line: "failed to sidestep a conviction...". Fucken hell. There are also some mentions of concerns for the threats to his potential to play overseas, but nothing said about his unborn child and what ramifications there might be on that wee thing's life...