What's your take on this whole no conviction rugby thing.

Forums › Sports › What's your take on this whole no conviction rugby thing.

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#1643239 30-Sep-2016 11:41

networkn:

I think he knows he did the wrong thing, and while I believe his sentence is too light, at the end of the day, the review will handle this.

If he doesn't know he did the wrong thing he must have an IQ smaller than his shoe size!!

MikeB4

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#1643242 30-Sep-2016 11:44

Lets see what the appeal brings.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Lias

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#1643249 30-Sep-2016 11:52

I'm not even convinced that prison time is warranted, the only thing I am sure of is that a discharge without conviction is not okay, he should be convicted.

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#1643257 30-Sep-2016 12:03

I am not going to get too far into the because he was a rugby player because this is not strictly true...

BUT

We are seeing enough cases to say special treatment exists, the guy who beat up a cop and got away with it due to being rich, the other one getting away with a sex crime because he was a celeb and the list goes on.

In all cases it is wrong that the judges are protecting the criminal rather than the victim and society.

[Mod edit (MF): removed name as suppression order is in effect]

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#1643319 30-Sep-2016 13:53

Lias:

It's just yet another piece of evidence to show that the legal system focuses too much on the rights of the offenders, and not the rights of the victims.

It's what we get for years of wishy washy liberals focusing on "rehabilitating" people instead of compensating victims and punishing offenders.

We have had centuries of extreme punishment, whipping, keel hauling, hanging, etc etc etc etc and that did not stop crime either.

Overseas/local statistics prove that rehab works, sure not for everyone, but is does work. The Dutch are even closing prisons.

I am continuously amazed at how quickly people are willing to spend $80,000 a year or more to imprison someone, and yet spend nothing on preventing people from getting there.

People who work with prisoners will tell you about 1% of prisoners should never get out, they are truely never going to be anything but a danger, the rest can be helped.

tehgerbil

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#1643342 30-Sep-2016 14:25

the incredibly ironic part in all this is that the recent Referee abuse video that Wellington Rugby Union released to highlight referee abuse. So they're being absurdly hypocritical.

Not 3 months ago WRU championed the message that it's not OK to punch referees.

But they're happy to blindly championing a man who punched and stomped on someones head before punching a couple of girls and shoving another man to the ground?

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#1643354 30-Sep-2016 15:46

tehgerbil:

the incredibly ironic part in all this is that the recent Referee abuse video that Wellington Rugby Union released to highlight referee abuse. So they're being absurdly hypocritical.

Not 3 months ago WRU championed the message that it's not OK to punch referees.

But they're happy to blindly championing a man who punched and stomped on someones head before punching a couple of girls and shoving another man to the ground?

I don't think that they're championing Filipo.

They have essentially fired him... yeah, he "voluntarily" terminated his contract, but I'd put long odds that he wouldn't have done that without a whole lot of pressure from the WRU (and probably the NZRU). Think constructive dismissal.

I think that the WRU and NZRU would say/do anything just to reduce the PR.

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#1643356 30-Sep-2016 15:55

frankv:

tehgerbil:

the incredibly ironic part in all this is that the recent Referee abuse video that Wellington Rugby Union released to highlight referee abuse. So they're being absurdly hypocritical.

Not 3 months ago WRU championed the message that it's not OK to punch referees.

But they're happy to blindly championing a man who punched and stomped on someones head before punching a couple of girls and shoving another man to the ground?

I don't think that they're championing Filipo.

They have essentially fired him... yeah, he "voluntarily" terminated his contract, but I'd put long odds that he wouldn't have done that without a whole lot of pressure from the WRU (and probably the NZRU). Think constructive dismissal.

I think that the WRU and NZRU would say/do anything just to reduce the PR.

And they wouldn't have done anything without a whole lot of pressure from the public.

martyyn

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#1643398 30-Sep-2016 17:39

I haven't bothered to read all of this thread and I'm not going to read it from here on because I'm genuinely shocked by some of the comments.

My wife is a barrister of 20+ years specialising in family law. You name it, she's seen it and dealt with it from both sides of the argument.

Her one overriding comment is discharges without conviction happen every day to people at every level of society. It's not based on wealth, race, or age despite the best efforts of our garbage media to convince us otherwise. No-one knows the kids background, what happened that night or what's happened since.

But suddenly everyone's an expert having read an article on Stuff and listened to some shock-jock ranting on about it.

I'm not saying I agree with the court's decision, I'm not saying I disagree with it. But people who are much more intelligent than I went through all this and decided that was the best outcome. We should be able to leave it at that.

networkn

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#1643414 30-Sep-2016 18:00

Geektastic:

networkn:

I think he knows he did the wrong thing, and while I believe his sentence is too light, at the end of the day, the review will handle this.

If he doesn't know he did the wrong thing he must have an IQ smaller than his shoe size!!

Well believe me when I tell you there are a lot of offenders out there who aren't remorseful. I suspect this young man will be dealing with the consequences of this long after this conversation has worn itself to it's eventual end the way so many GZ discussions do, with 1 or 3 hard-core people arguing about something relatively unrelated until the thread is locked.

networkn

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#1643416 30-Sep-2016 18:03

martyyn:

I haven't bothered to read all of this thread and I'm not going to read it from here on because I'm genuinely shocked by some of the comments.

My wife is a barrister of 20+ years specialising in family law. You name it, she's seen it and dealt with it from both sides of the argument.

Her one overriding comment is discharges without conviction happen every day to people at every level of society. It's not based on wealth, race, or age despite the best efforts of our garbage media to convince us otherwise. No-one knows the kids background, what happened that night or what's happened since.

But suddenly everyone's an expert having read an article on Stuff and listened to some shock-jock ranting on about it.

I'm not saying I agree with the court's decision, I'm not saying I disagree with it. But people who are much more intelligent than I went through all this and decided that was the best outcome. We should be able to leave it at that.

Thanks for weighing in. It can be quite hard to get people away from the perception that the rich famous etc are getting significantly more preferential treatment than the rest of people.

Two of my nephews who are neither celebrities, famous, sports people OR wealthy have been given warnings for what might otherwise have been perceived as throw them in jail by some groups of this community.

Both have learned from their mistake and are on a better road now. Neither will win a nobel prize I suspect, but the alternatives were fairly grim.

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#1643458 30-Sep-2016 19:01

martyyn:

I haven't bothered to read all of this thread and I'm not going to read it from here on because I'm genuinely shocked by some of the comments.

My wife is a barrister of 20+ years specialising in family law. You name it, she's seen it and dealt with it from both sides of the argument.

Her one overriding comment is discharges without conviction happen every day to people at every level of society. It's not based on wealth, race, or age despite the best efforts of our garbage media to convince us otherwise. No-one knows the kids background, what happened that night or what's happened since.

But suddenly everyone's an expert having read an article on Stuff and listened to some shock-jock ranting on about it.

I'm not saying I agree with the court's decision, I'm not saying I disagree with it. But people who are much more intelligent than I went through all this and decided that was the best outcome. We should be able to leave it at that.

He got off because of his rugby career, that is known. Had he been convicted and given the same sentence as everyone else, his rugby career would continue, his travel would involve his personal inconvenience in needing a visa for every destination. You don't need to be an expert to see this outcome was rubbish. The RU can support him if they wished to, he can travel. Maybe he should have got name suppression so it can stay a dark secret.

tdgeek

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#1643460 30-Sep-2016 19:04

Some here have mentioned jail, but jail isn't the issue, he probably would not have got jail time for being 17 and a first offender. Its rubbish

MikeB4

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#1643496 30-Sep-2016 19:48

Hands up those who were present throughout the hearing, heard in person the Judges decision and any reports he received.

I am happy to wait the outcome of the appeal and leave it there.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

dejadeadnz

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#1643499 30-Sep-2016 20:01

jonathan18:

An important point that I don't think has been raised here yet is again something discussed on the Panel yesterday: that the Police did not oppose the request for a discharge without conviction.

I took it that this could be part of the "something more behind the story", ie whether there were discussions between Police and Wellington Rugby that led them to not opposing the request.

I wouldn't take what a likely sworn officer (i.e. not a real, qualified lawyer) "masquerading" as a prosecutor did or did not do as an indication of anything. If you or anyone else is shocked that there are non-lawyers appearing in court as prosecutors, IMO you are right to be. The police's in-house prosecution service, by virtue of the fact that in law an informant who initiates a District Court prosecution is entitled to appear in court in relation to it (i.e. right of audience is not, unlike the High Court, restricted to qualified lawyers holding a practising certificate), continues to hire sworn officers to act as prosecutors. The hypocrisy of this is startling -- they insist that all external prosecutor hires into the Police Prosecution Service must be real lawyers yet allow their own chosen amateurs to appear as prosecutors. In theory they receive a certain level of training and all that but there is a reason why they don't have actual law degrees.

In my experience as a Crown prosecutor (i.e. ones who prosecute the more serious crimes that are tried before a jury at the District Court or High Court) and also handling appeals for both the Crown and defence against cases taken by sworn Police prosecutors, their standards of advocacy are patchy at best. Some are very good (but they are rare) with many being quite poor. The PPS is also massively stretched and often do not interface well with Crown Law -- so it is quite conceivable that the prosecutor concerned just didn't appreciate what a serious case they had on their hands.

Lias:

I'm not even convinced that prison time is warranted, the only thing I am sure of is that a discharge without conviction is not okay, he should be convicted.

Best post of this thread, IMO. The decision to discharge is indefensible but as much as this thug deserves no sympathy, society doesn't benefit from him being sent to jail. I think a serious dose of community work coupled with home detention would have been the right outcome.

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