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https://audioboom.com/boos/3947066-susie-o-brien-on-the-run-homeO’Brien: Business isn’t as usual for DustyJohn Takemura
SEN
15 Dec 2015, 05:51PMThe seriousness of Dustin Martin’s alleged indiscretions mean it shouldn’t be ‘business as usual’ for the Richmond star, says Susie O’Brien.
In her article for today’s Herald Sun she suggests such headlines explain everything we need to know about society’s attitude towards violence against women.
“We’ve heard Brendon Gale talking about extremely serious behaviour and yet he’s training in Queensland,” fumed O’Brien on SEN Radio.
“I don’t think it should be business as usual, because we know that something happened and we’re still working out exactly what.
“Something happened for him to apologise, enough happened for him to make a public statement about it."
She says that while everyone has the right to innocence, allowing Martin to go on the Tigers pre-season camp to the Gold Coast sends a terrible message.
“Obviously it’s innocent until proven guilty but we know something happened, we know that he’s not completely innocent because he’s come out and admitted it,” said O’Brien.
“There’s footage of him being escorted out of that restaurant, there are numerous witnesses. It’s not like nothing happened and what worries me is everybody’s acting like nothing at all happened.
“He’s allowed to go about his business while this investigation is happening elsewhere, he should be suspended and I think that Richmond should already be setting out some of the penalties that may apply.
“I think that it sends entirely the wrong message for them to be ‘business as usual’ for Dusty, our mate Dusty while something this serious has happened.”
O’Brien also hit out at the AFL for the way they have investigated the case, suggesting they wanted it to suit themselves.
“I think that people did genuinely feel that there was a bit of a sense they were trying to keep it in house and only three or four days later did they go to the police,” she said.
“Clearly if you have allegations of this serious nature, I think there’s a general feeling that the police should’ve been brought in earlier.
“There’s also some allegations from the woman ‘Tracey’ that the AFL leaned on her and put pressure on her to water down her claims and some of the stuff that she’s come out saying is very concerning.
“The AFL can’t investigate itself and they may need to go elsewhere at that point someone from outside their organisation to look at what transpired, in terms of the way she was treated.”
http://www.sen.com.au/news/12-15/o-brien-business-isn-t-as-usual-for-dusty#0sOCTLIJYIPmLqu5.97
