Martin Asked to Leave Restaurant / Apologises to Female Patron

[TigerMonk]

"How would people feel if it was their partner, parents, kids who came home and told you that this had happened to them. Don't think there is too many of us who would say you should have minded your own business, laughed it off or said you deserved it "bitch"."

I get that I am in the minority here but I still think his actions on the night were stupid

TBH if my daughters came home and told me they asked a drunk man to be quiet I would have told them that that was a very stupid thing to do. Drunk people do not understand reason. There is no point confronting them as long as you have a choice not to. If a drunk person is disturbing you at your gathering then alert management and let them deal with the issue. If they refuse to do anything, my advice would be to leave. People who are drunk or are on drugs often do not know what they are doing. If my daughters did what that Ch7 producer did, I'd be horrified and upset with their stupidity. Imagine if this person was your usual unknown, you would never be able to do anything about it and you just don't know what they were really capable of. And that's the truth.

Too right. Never confront a drug or alcohol affected person. That is when violence erupts. Don't come near me when l'm drinking   

[Willy]

Come on fellas. It's not about whether you lot think it's a big deal or not, it's that the present day AFL machine will freakin jump up and down about it. Luke it or lump it, the club is a part of that PC world and it has no choice but to come down hard on him. If it fails to, the implications with sponsorships etc. would me massive. It's not the 60's or country footy. Image is critical.

The person I am most disappointed with in all of this is Dusty himself. Seriously, the club gives him plenty of rope to play up and carry on like a pork chop on weekends. All he had to do was not threaten to stab a chick in public. Dumb stuffer.

Honestly everyone can get stuffed. Go support someone else. Absolutely pathetic Richmond support on this thread. All in the name of being politically correct.. stuff me.

Take a trip on the Werribee train line, this happens every... single...  day and is recorded.. nothing is done about it. 'Kill Yourself' is the latest 'fad' on social media. Look up any weird YouTube clip, its all over it. In this case just add chopsticks. Police are now involved, what a load of rubbish. A drunken death threat. Please.

Rosie Batty case and point, goes to police to report multiple child abuse examples. Nothing is done. Yet the media want to run with this story day after day. You are all fools. Shame on you all for supporting the punishment of this. Politically correct yes it's the wrong thing, well good on you for being politically correct. Anyone taken a step back to give a stuff about Dustin Martin? Anyone want to think of why he acts the way he does, why he has a drinking problem? How is he feeling? Don't tell me the woman is traumatised. Don't you dare tell me that.

Simply put this is another AFL footy player who has made a mistake being hung drawn and quartered by the media. Not just any AFL player but a very fragile one. A seriously fragile one. When Dusty commits suicide next week over all of this will you give a stuff? Who will be accountable when this happens? You idiots for wanting him hung drawn and quartered and the rest of the media I'll be pointing at. Get a grip.

Is Channel 7 out there in King Street pressing charges against people who abuse others physically or verbally every single night? No. Get stuffed. Are they at schools pressing charges against bullies who tell teenagers to 'kill themselves' and mentally disintegrate low self esteem kids? No. What a load of rubbish this all is. Why not? Because its a story, 70k members are automatically locked into interest and we have idiots on here that have fuelled it. Well done.

I stand by Dusty, made a mistake, get him counselling and actually fix the issue that has been ongoing for a long time instead of calling for his head and bloody jail time for Gods sake. RFC need to take responsibility in this. They've allowed Dusty to live an extravagant life and in all honesty has slightly worked but anyone could have seen that it was a huge risk. Just as it would have been to ban him from this lifestyle completely, he'd possibly have given the game away by now. Who knows. RFC can't was their hands of this.

But yeah Willy and the rest of you cotton wool fools, lets sack him, lets hung him out to dry, sack Jack Riewoldt too for running away from media, sack them all. Lets enjoy another 30 years of absolute horse pee. At least at the end of the day we can all pat ourselves on the back for being 'politically correct'...

You need to calm yourself, mate. You've gone off your dial. Bringing up suicide? You are more hysterical than the media.

Not once did I suggest that we should sack Dusty. In fact, I said KB's suggestion was rediculous so wtf are you talking about exactly?

 I just said that if he did what is alleged, then it was stupid and will need to be punished by the club. I took Dusty's apology to be an admission of guilt. But it seems there's a chance that this lady exaggerated things so we'll wait and see what comes up. Hopefully when all the facts are there, it doesn't look so bad and he'll just cop a fine.

I think there should be consequences for our players' mistakes, just like with anyone, but any suggestion that I'm out to drag Dusty through the mud is just bloody stupid.

He is one of my fave players. I love the bastard and want him to play which is why I was disappointed that he put himself in this situation.
 

[(•))(©™]

It's clearly Dustin's mothers fault

[🏅Dooks]

Anyone read Rita P's article in the HS claiming the afl and richmond have been protecting Dusty, and have sold the victim out?

[Diocletian]

You mean this hysterical dribble....

    NO matter how strongly the AFL promotes itself as a standard bearer of decency and virtue, when it comes to the crunch the league invariably chooses brand protection over integrity.

    The league has again demonstrated just how hopelessly out of step it is with community standards in its handling of the Dustin Martin saga.

    The Richmond star’s threats of violence against a terrified woman have been well documented, what has not been reported until now is the lengths the Richmond Football Club and AFL House went to in order to manage the victim known as Tracey.
    On Monday morning after Tracey first reported that she’d been threatened with being stabbed with a chopstick, it seems that Richmond’s primary concern was not the victim but damage control.

    According to sources close to investigation, Richmond club was keen to contain the story, fearful that the allegation would leak to the media.

    The club ordered Martin to phone the victim personally and apologise, one could hypothesise in the hopes that would shut her up.


    [​IMG]
    According to one source a Richmond officer said to the victim “there must be a better way to deal with it than through the media”.

    The club then briefed an accommodating journalist only too happy to reveal not only the name of Tracey’s employer but also her specific role within that organisation.

    To identify a victim of violence in such a manner is beyond the pale. It not only needlessly traumatises them but is likely to dissuade other victims from coming forward.

    One would have hoped we moved past the ugly old days when victims were intimidated into withdrawing complaints or blamed for the aggressor’s actions with a compliant media happy to spin a story to protect ‘the game’.

    Once the case was in the public domain and it was clear that more significant action would be required the victim was visited on her own turf, by a seemingly empathetic integrity officer from the AFL along with a representative from Richmond.

    But at that meeting, the victim was given the impression the offence was not viewed as a criminal one.

    Then when they presented to the victim her statement from the meeting it is understood she was very unhappy about several “falsifications” that played down the extent of her terror and the seriousness of Martin’s actions.

    One AFL officer has since been accused by those close to the victim of essentially monstering her; lambasting her for leaking and talking to the media and repeatedly questioning her evidence saying there were contrary views about how far away Martin stood while he threatened to stab her and what he said.

    They insisted that she come to AFL House to give a statement.

    At that meeting the AFL representatives were said to be rude.

    Tracey was questioned about whether she was sure she wanted to proceed with her claim that Martin threatened to stab her with a chopstick, and warned that if she did they would have to refer it to police and it could potentially end his career.

    She was also warned that he could be charged with offences carrying jail time of 10 years. They then reiterated the warnings, giving the victim the impression that they wanted her to water down her complaint.

    At no point was the victim encouraged to bring someone with her for support or legal advice.

    When the AFL eventually referred the matter to police they did not bother to advise Tracey that they had done so.

    On social media an AFL staffer used his private twitter account to release the information instead of the AFL’ s official account which has more than 500,000 followers.


    But the most shameful conduct, apart from Martin’s alleged explosion of violence, was to come on Thursday evening when the AFL actively briefed the media against the victim once the case was out of its hands.

    One of the investigators who had been the most aggressive towards her told her “we’ve washed our hands of this’’.

    How is it that these investigators, who are well credentialed former police officers on significant salaries, could be so ham-fisted in their handling of the case?

    An integrity officer is charged with protecting the integrity of the investigation but their primary concern appears to have been to protect the image of the game.

    At best the handling of this matter has been incompetent, at worst it has been malicious in intimidating a traumatised victim.

    The investigators’ insistence that the offences were minor coupled with pressure exerted on the victim to water down her allegation, with claims that it could land Martin in jail, are utterly unscrupulous.

    As soon as the allegations were made why wasn’t it determined that it was a criminal matter that should be immediately referred to police?

    Why did the league and the club spend four days needlessly distressing the victim and potentially contaminating the case before they eventually referred it to police?

    The police’s performance on this issue, has been almost as woeful.

    Why could they not have put in a call to the AFL at the outset, when it was surely clear a potential criminal offence had been committed.

    Why did it need the Herald Sun to yesterday point out in its newspaper editorial that police could open an investigation despite not receiving a formal complaint?

    It was only after that editorial, and after the Herald Sun online revealed the victim had belatedly been advised that threatening to stab or kill is a criminal offence, that the police got involved.

    Also, Richmond being allowed to investigate the matter alongside the AFL, who would later assess if the club acted appropriately, is reminiscent of the ASADA fiasco and shows the AFL has learnt little from that saga.

    The AFL may pride itself on being a leading light in changing community attitudes towards women but though it talks a good game about respect and responsibility it fails to live up to even the lowest of expectations.

The culture of cover ups and intimidation has seen the league sell out a victim of violence in a vain attempt to protect the brand.
     

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=HSWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&mode=premium&dest=http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/dustin-martin-saga-richmond-afl-house-protect-star-sells-out-victim-of-violence/news-story/93ee2cf3f8465de7af8563e12ca21493&memtype=anonymous

[Francois Jackson]

3AW. Elliot has spoken with the producer

He is going to discuss that conversation shortly. More of the same I bet...

[WilliamPowell]

Now I am going to go whack here

I still think Dusty did a moronic thing

But he media have today stooped to anew level of gutter journalism

The HUN article Dio posted, the tripe in the Age from John Silvestor is simply shameful, pathetic and totally over the top. Talk about prejudicing a persons case.

Suggest the media Let the cops do their job rather than ranting like lunatics on Ice.

Let the cops decide what to do with this case

And if that means he gets charged, he gets charged, if if means there is no case here then fine move on.

But this media grandstanding and trying to score points off the back of this gutter journalism at of the highest order

[Stalin]

Rita has been writing moron stuff for some time

IMHO

[WilliamPowell]

TBH if my daughters came home and told me they asked a drunk man to be quiet I would have told them that that was a very stupid thing to do. Drunk people do not understand reason. There is no point confronting them as long as you have a choice not to. If a drunk person is disturbing you at your gathering then alert management and let them deal with the issue. If they refuse to do anything, my advice would be to leave. People who are drunk or are on drugs often do not know what they are doing. If my daughters did what that Ch7 producer did, I'd be horrified and upset with their stupidity. Imagine if this person was your usual unknown, you would never be able to do anything about it and you just don't know what they were really capable of. And that's the truth.

Thanks for your honesty

Just hope you wouldn't tell they deserved it. Because they don't, no one does.

And what if they didn't say anything and just copped it for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

[tony_montana]

You mean this hysterical dribble....

    NO matter how strongly the AFL promotes itself as a standard bearer of decency and virtue, when it comes to the crunch the league invariably chooses brand protection over integrity.

    The league has again demonstrated just how hopelessly out of step it is with community standards in its handling of the Dustin Martin saga.

    The Richmond star’s threats of violence against a terrified woman have been well documented, what has not been reported until now is the lengths the Richmond Football Club and AFL House went to in order to manage the victim known as Tracey.
    On Monday morning after Tracey first reported that she’d been threatened with being stabbed with a chopstick, it seems that Richmond’s primary concern was not the victim but damage control.

    According to sources close to investigation, Richmond club was keen to contain the story, fearful that the allegation would leak to the media.

    The club ordered Martin to phone the victim personally and apologise, one could hypothesise in the hopes that would shut her up.


    [​IMG]
    According to one source a Richmond officer said to the victim “there must be a better way to deal with it than through the media”.

    The club then briefed an accommodating journalist only too happy to reveal not only the name of Tracey’s employer but also her specific role within that organisation.

    To identify a victim of violence in such a manner is beyond the pale. It not only needlessly traumatises them but is likely to dissuade other victims from coming forward.

    One would have hoped we moved past the ugly old days when victims were intimidated into withdrawing complaints or blamed for the aggressor’s actions with a compliant media happy to spin a story to protect ‘the game’.

    Once the case was in the public domain and it was clear that more significant action would be required the victim was visited on her own turf, by a seemingly empathetic integrity officer from the AFL along with a representative from Richmond.

    But at that meeting, the victim was given the impression the offence was not viewed as a criminal one.

    Then when they presented to the victim her statement from the meeting it is understood she was very unhappy about several “falsifications” that played down the extent of her terror and the seriousness of Martin’s actions.

    One AFL officer has since been accused by those close to the victim of essentially monstering her; lambasting her for leaking and talking to the media and repeatedly questioning her evidence saying there were contrary views about how far away Martin stood while he threatened to stab her and what he said.

    They insisted that she come to AFL House to give a statement.

    At that meeting the AFL representatives were said to be rude.

    Tracey was questioned about whether she was sure she wanted to proceed with her claim that Martin threatened to stab her with a chopstick, and warned that if she did they would have to refer it to police and it could potentially end his career.

    She was also warned that he could be charged with offences carrying jail time of 10 years. They then reiterated the warnings, giving the victim the impression that they wanted her to water down her complaint.

    At no point was the victim encouraged to bring someone with her for support or legal advice.

    When the AFL eventually referred the matter to police they did not bother to advise Tracey that they had done so.

    On social media an AFL staffer used his private twitter account to release the information instead of the AFL’ s official account which has more than 500,000 followers.


    But the most shameful conduct, apart from Martin’s alleged explosion of violence, was to come on Thursday evening when the AFL actively briefed the media against the victim once the case was out of its hands.

    One of the investigators who had been the most aggressive towards her told her “we’ve washed our hands of this’’.

    How is it that these investigators, who are well credentialed former police officers on significant salaries, could be so ham-fisted in their handling of the case?

    An integrity officer is charged with protecting the integrity of the investigation but their primary concern appears to have been to protect the image of the game.

    At best the handling of this matter has been incompetent, at worst it has been malicious in intimidating a traumatised victim.

    The investigators’ insistence that the offences were minor coupled with pressure exerted on the victim to water down her allegation, with claims that it could land Martin in jail, are utterly unscrupulous.

    As soon as the allegations were made why wasn’t it determined that it was a criminal matter that should be immediately referred to police?

    Why did the league and the club spend four days needlessly distressing the victim and potentially contaminating the case before they eventually referred it to police?

    The police’s performance on this issue, has been almost as woeful.

    Why could they not have put in a call to the AFL at the outset, when it was surely clear a potential criminal offence had been committed.

    Why did it need the Herald Sun to yesterday point out in its newspaper editorial that police could open an investigation despite not receiving a formal complaint?

    It was only after that editorial, and after the Herald Sun online revealed the victim had belatedly been advised that threatening to stab or kill is a criminal offence, that the police got involved.

    Also, Richmond being allowed to investigate the matter alongside the AFL, who would later assess if the club acted appropriately, is reminiscent of the ASADA fiasco and shows the AFL has learnt little from that saga.

    The AFL may pride itself on being a leading light in changing community attitudes towards women but though it talks a good game about respect and responsibility it fails to live up to even the lowest of expectations.

The culture of cover ups and intimidation has seen the league sell out a victim of violence in a vain attempt to protect the brand.
     

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=HSWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&mode=premium&dest=http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/dustin-martin-saga-richmond-afl-house-protect-star-sells-out-victim-of-violence/news-story/93ee2cf3f8465de7af8563e12ca21493&memtype=anonymous

Reckon she's missed the point. who instigated the police investigation? There'd be a reason for that and I'm tipping it's not what these media parasites are hoping for

[Rodgerramjet]

At the end of the day, Dustin has only got himself to blame.

If Dustin didn't have any understanding of how his actions could impact the larger supporter group and football community then he certainly will have now.

This is the reality that a lot of young footballers don't actually get, they don't actually get that they can have such a large-scale impact on the community of course with the backing of media hysteria.

Good luck to him, he is going to need it. The press are after blood, the club is probably too scared to act, not that they can probably do very much anyway, but still.

I think involving the police was very good idea I think by doing that it will actually stabilise the scene to some extent there will be some goading by press towards the Richmond football club to smash Dustin I think they need to judge the evidence on its merit and act accordingly.

He might get eight weeks

[Stalin]

Here is an idea

If a bloke is enjoying his sushi , acting like a chopstick walrus

Perhaps advise your great granma / sister / daughter

Not too call him over , like an arrogant cow

[YellowandBlackBlood]

TBH if my daughters came home and told me they asked a drunk man to be quiet I would have told them that that was a very stupid thing to do. Drunk people do not understand reason. There is no point confronting them as long as you have a choice not to. If a drunk person is disturbing you at your gathering then alert management and let them deal with the issue. If they refuse to do anything, my advice would be to leave. People who are drunk or are on drugs often do not know what they are doing. If my daughters did what that Ch7 producer did, I'd be horrified and upset with their stupidity. Imagine if this person was your usual unknown, you would never be able to do anything about it and you just don't know what they were really capable of. And that's the truth.

Thanks for your honesty

Just hope you wouldn't tell they deserved it. Because they don't, no one does.

And what if they didn't say anything and just copped it for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Of course nobody deserves this behavior from drunken sods. However, one must be street wise and avoid confrontation at all costs. Even when you can easily defend yourself, you are always taught to avoid confrontation if possible. There are no winners when you get into a fight. Just injured human beings.
And it's worse if you have instigated the confrontation by telling someone to shut up.
Of course, it is very different if you are just an innocent bystander. I would be mortified if my daughters were threatened and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I would then ask for the police to step in.

[🏅Dooks]

Now I am going to go whack here

I still think Dusty did a moronic thing

But he media have today stooped to anew level of gutter journalism

The HUN article Dio posted, the tripe in the Age from John Silvestor is simply shameful, pathetic and totally over the top. Talk about prejudicing a persons case.

Suggest the media Let the cops do their job rather than ranting like lunatics on Ice.

Let the cops decide what to do with this case

And if that means he gets charged, he gets charged, if if means there is no case here then fine move on.

But this media grandstanding and trying to score points off the back of this gutter journalism at of the highest order

For mine the article from Rita represents a new low in the reporting of this case. The usual 'out' when journos get it wrong is 'oh, but it's an opinion piece'.

[cub]

Think Rita needs to cook him some eggs and stfu!