Martin Asked to Leave Restaurant / Apologises to Female Patron

[Penelope]

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?

and what if your auntie had balls? She'd be your uncle, right?

FFS! what ifs??!!

What about being able to identify dangerous situations and being able to avoid them, rather than inflame them. It is one of lifes basic skills for self presevation, but more and more, and in particular with women, it actaully being encouraged to do the exact opposite.

If someone I knew and cared for had done what this thing had, i would be pointing out that what she did was akin to grabbing a tiger by the tale and was not the smartest course of action. Hailing a drunk person to your side like the queen of sheeba and then chastising them is not ever going to be included in "how to placidly deal with drunks 101"
It would however be right near the top of "how to pick a fight with a drunk on the sly 101"

It has nothing to do with saying she deserved it, but her actions greatly influenced the situation, and if there is any substance to these eye witness accounts, much more so than her original statements led us all to believe.

...and why you would throw;

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

into the conversation? It is truly bewildering, as that is then a completely different scenario, and is clearly not the case here. It seems , like the media, you have an agenda to pursue and are willing to throw out red herrings and furthies to keep the barrow rolling in the direction you want.

[Penelope]

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

well well rita, guilty as charged hey? you may be late onto the scene but you are definitely leading pitchfork wielding mob here

no wonder you think there is something wrong with this;

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”.

because that is suggesting then you shouldn't be sinking to such lows. That trial by media is not the best course of action. Geez what does that do to your view of your own self importance?

regardless of what you and your fellow media scum think, it is not your role to pass judgement on people until all the facts are known.

This is exactly why RFC have put this into the hands of the police, to avoid trial by media.

get over your self inflated worth and STF up!

Are you going to apologise if the police find that you mate Tracy actually caused a situation by her actions and Martin has no case to answer?

I bet not because that would require integrity and you clearly have none, Zero. Zilch!

what will be even funnier is if they decide there is a case to answer, but the DPP conclude that the plethora of such articles have prejudiced the case and it would be thrown out of court for such.

[Stalin]

Judge dread

Rita, Caro, other assorted media flogs

I AM THE LAW

[WilliamPowell]

and what if your auntie had balls? She'd be your uncle, right?

FFS! what ifs??!!

What? Lost me

What about being able to identify dangerous situations and being able to avoid them, rather than inflame them. It is one of lifes basic skills for self presevation, but more and more, and in particular with women, it actaully being encouraged to do the exact opposite.

If someone I knew and cared for had done what this thing had, i would be pointing out that what she did was akin to grabbing a tiger by the tale and was not the smartest course of action. Hailing a drunk person to your side like the queen of sheeba and then chastising them is not ever going to be included in "how to placidly deal with drunks 101"
It would however be right near the top of "how to pick a fight with a drunk on the sly 101"

It has nothing to do with saying she deserved it, but her actions greatly influenced the situation, and if there is any substance to these eye witness accounts, much more so than her original statements led us all to believe.

Yes Her actions may have influenced the situation, actually there is a case to say they may inflamed the situation but it still doesn't justify what Dusty did; it doesn't make it right. And that has been one of of my points all along

And BTW a number people on here have said that she deserved what happened it is all her fault because she approached him.

...and why you would throw;

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

into the conversation? It is truly bewildering, as that is then a completely different scenario, and is clearly not the case here. It seems , like the media, you have an agenda to pursue and are willing to throw out red herrings and furthies to keep the barrow rolling in the direction you want.

Why? Because reading through this thread it would appear that it wouldn't matter what the scenario, it would be the person at the end of the verbal barrage who's to blame rather than person dishing it out. Was hoping to get a clear indication that wasn't the case

I have no agenda here. I am and have always been a great supporter of Dusty on this forum. Remember the contract saga when so many wanted him out of the club, I didn't, supported him. Backed him into stay. I am a huge supporter of his, always have been, always will be.

But he not perfect....

So just because I refuse to not hold him blameless here doesn't mean I don't support him or means I have some hidden agenda. Contrary to what a number of people have posted He is not blameless in this whole mess

[WilliamPowell]

Only really one question for Rita and it's a question I asked on day 1

And that is ...

If the "victim" was so distraught, anger, scared, terrified then why didn't she go to the cops herself. Why did she wait until work on Monday?

But as Penelope has already pointed out, we may have to thank Rita of this ends up in court as a criminal case, she's done a fantastic job of prejudicing this case 

[Yeahright]

I'll play devils advocate here and say this. Why is her approaching Martin instead of the cops/management a bad thing? Maybe she had genuinely good intentions of giving him a heads up to pull his head in so someone else didn't end up going to the cops/managment and smearing his name. It was stupid no doubt seeing as Martin was drunk, but surely Martin has to be man enough to think "damn, maybe I am being a bit over the top" and just tone him self down. If he did that chances are no one would of heard a bleep out of this.

[Stalin]

Wtf

[Smokey]

I'll play devils advocate here and say this. Why is her approaching Martin instead of the cops/management a bad thing? Maybe she had genuinely good intentions of giving him a heads up to pull his head in so someone else didn't end up going to the cops/managment and smearing his name.

Because her actions are not consistent with someone having genuinely good intentions.  If she did, she would have gone up to Dusty instead of beckoning him to her table.  And if she did, you can't comprehend that she wouldn't have applied Dealing With Drunks 101 and that is to not get involved but let those with the skills, training and position deal with it.  And if she did then the apology that she accepted on Monday morning should have been the end of it, not the beginning.

[bojangles17]

Pity for these media leaches they're efforts to find some form have proved fruitless.
His behavior was completely out of character
So did she feel genuinely threatened or was this a golden opportunity to exploit her role at ch 7 and a produce a headline for the 600 news

The fact that ch 7 got the exclusive and it wasn't even reported to the cops says plenty , not too mention the conflicting reports  of the exchange

All we can ask is justice

[(•))(©™]

Because everybody feels threatened when someone "famous"  says they're goig to stab you with a chopstick in front of a full restaurant of patrons....because that kind of thing happens all the time.

She had her femmo ego bruised and is now being a femmo idiot about it.

That's all.

Dusty is a idiot but the longer this drags on, the more she looks like a bigger one.

#HairyMuffs

[(•))(©™]

He's apologised.

What's this idiots problem.

Dog cow rat idiot

[bojangles17]

Because she was expecting the RFC would rollover and accept a massive penalty, if DM had form like say Darren Millane who used to bash pub patrons for kicks , then sure, throw him to the wolves.
That he s never been in this kinda strife before, and the incident stopped short of an assault , this has gone out of control with the media lynch mob after DM coz he has neck tattoos and his dad's a bikie. No other explanation

[Smokey]

Your best post of 2015 BJ.

[WA Tiger]

Because she was expecting the RFC would rollover and accept a massive penalty, if DM had form like say Darren Millane who used to bash pub patrons for kicks , then sure, throw him to the wolves.
That he s never been in this kinda strife before, and the incident stopped short of an assault , this has gone out of control with the media lynch mob after DM coz he has neck tattoos and his dad's a bikie. No other explanation

X2. Who is his Dad with?

[Diocletian]

Mongrel Mob