Hard News: Veitch
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Paul Henry will slap him on the back telling him how he understands what men have to put up with and that "The B***ch" deserved it for being so pushy.
Veitch's behaviour is a completely different kind of disgusting to Henry. Neither of them are particularly pleasant individuals.
But what point does dreaming up this kind of scenario serve? On the one hand it undermines the true horror of Veitch's actions, and on the other it attributes opinions to Henry that are unfair and unsubstantiated. Why not stick to criticising them for their actual beahviour?
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But what point does dreaming up this kind of scenario serve?
We need entertainment.
on the other it attributes opinions to Henry that are unfair and unsubstantiated
Poor Paul Henry. <sarcasm>
Why not stick to criticising them for their actual beahviour?
No-one is undermining the horror of Veitch's behaviour. We're all appalled by it. Did you not notice?
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On Checkpoint, Mary Wilson spoke to Stuart Grieve QC, Veitch's lawyer. He spoke of his side's thwarted desire for a defended trial, saying that they wanted a "rumble" and that there would have been "blood on the carpet."
That's inappropriate to the point of being seriously unprofessional. I would hope one or more of Grieve's colleagues might be moved to point that out to him.
What kind of juice have all these people been on? I've also lost nearly any respect I had for Glenda Hughes after the disgraceful (and, ironically, counterproductive) media manipulation conducted on Veitch's behalf.
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Couple of things:
1. Yes the sentence seems light, but actually I don't think sending Veitch to prison would help anyone really. It'd make me feel a bit better, for a little while, but then what?
2. What would help is Veitch actually *getting it*, ie what he did and why it was wrong. Not much sign that's going to happen anytime soon - how is it possible to get through to someone who seems to be hard wired about the matter? How can we (as in our society) get Veitch, and others like him, to that aha moment? And what do we do with them until then?
3. Anyone else hear Kathryn Ryan's very careful interview with Veitch this morning? I thought it was a very startlingly good effort on her part, it was a tough interview. And Veitch repeated the metaphors that his lawyer used "blood on the floor" etc. I too winced.
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Yes the sentence seems light, but actually I don't think sending Veitch to prison would help anyone really. It'd make me feel a bit better, for a little while, but then what?
Mmmh... conversely, what message does *not* sending him to prison send? And besides the law has to apply to everyone equally. I'm no expert on the sentencing guidelines for this sort of crime, but it's hard to not form the impression that he got away pretty lightly, and that it might have something to do with being able to afford good lawyers and media handlers and having celebrity friends.
Incidentally, the Susan Devoy article quoted upthread is pretty damning, no? I hadn't got round to reading until now.
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1. Yes the sentence seems light, but actually I don't think sending Veitch to prison would help anyone really. It'd make me feel a bit better, for a little while, but then what?
I deliberately didn't dwell on it, because I am of the mind that a judge who has heard the evidence, considered mitigating and aggravating factors and eyeballed the defendant is the person we want to pass a sentence. I'm unimpressed when the SST or various other windbags complain about sentencing in cases they have barely followed.
Clearly, Veitch could have gone to jail -- and he probably would have without top-flight legal representation -- but, like you, I'd rather see that he actually got it.
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I've also lost nearly any respect
Isn't this like a 'quantum change'?
It seems to imply to that you nearly lost some respect ... i.e. you nearly lost some, but in the end, you didn't actually lose any.
Maybe you "lost nearly all respect"?
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Isn't that Contempt of Court, or even Perjury?
It's not contempt or perjury, but if she was deliberately misled as to the purpose for which the reference was sought it is (at least arguably) a breach of the lawyers' obligations as officers of the Court.
I imagine the judge will be none too pleased with the idea either.
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Is 300 hours of community service light for a first time offender making a plea bargain? I'm not playing devils advocate, just asking.
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Maybe you "lost nearly all respect"?
Yes, you pendant you.
I typed "lost any respect" then qualified it with "nearly" without changing "any" to "all".
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Is 300 hours of community service light for a first time offender making a plea bargain? I'm not playing devils advocate, just asking.
Hey, I got one year of community service back home for being a male of the species. Community service is like an interesting holiday. And a 10,000 dollar fine? But the issue ultimately is that he pleaded to a crime that sounds to my uneducated hear more than a little euphemistic. "Reckless disregard causing injury"? Is that what we're calling this?
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Paul Henry ... " Honestly how is this vile man still on television?
Because people forget there is an option - well several actually
on/off button
RNZ breakfast
numerous web sites
numerous cable channelsand, if like me, you still want light fluffy news while that first coffee slowly activates your neurons, then Oliver Driver and co. on TV3 do just fine without finding it necessary to be nasty little ...
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Two things about the Campbell interviews, which I've now seen:
1. Gosh, Dunne-Powell was really calm and eloquent. I was very impressed by her.
2. When Veitch said that he wasn't 'allowed to walk away' that night, I got just a tad, um, completely infuriated.
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I thought his worst experience is when that evil media went public about what he’d done (and always owned up to) ?
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I am of the mind that a judge who has heard the evidence, considered mitigating and aggravating factors and eyeballed the defendant is the person we want to pass a sentence
Surely the judge hasn't heard the evidence if they were only now gearing up for depositions. I thought the whole (to me, only) point of the decision to plead guilty was to avoid having the evidence presented to the court.
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I thought the whole (to me, only) point of the decision to plead guilty was to avoid having the evidence presented to the court.
I'd have thought victim impact statement etc would count as evidence for sentencing purposes, but perhaps I have my words muddled.
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I'd welcome advice from anyone who was familiar with the sentencing guidelines.
Those spin doctors were a good investment:
Doctor Bill Hodge, associate professor of the University of Auckland's Faculty of Law, said when comparing it to a range of similar cases, Veitch's sentence "appears not to be on the harsh side, it would be on the light side".
And Devoy noted:
But it is a different kettle of fish when you are writing a letter of support of someone coming up for sentencing. And I know that because I have written a letter recently for someone who is actually serving 10 years and six months for something probably a lot less than what Tony has done."
I believe the judge said on telly last night that sentencing this criminal to jail was too dangerous for his health and that the victim would not support it either, which matched the non-vindictive demeanor Dunne-Powell showed with John Campbell.
The judge was probably correct, given Veitch's fragile mental state alongside his rampant ego fed by family, industry and supporters. Sure, guilt is complex but I can't fathom how a person can deny they've done something wrong while repeatedly trying to kill themselves over it. Or were the suicide attempts also spurred by this manchild's obvious self-pity?
Like Sue above, I have to question the quality of all this counselling he has supposedly had.
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Giovanni, as euphemistic as it sounds, reckless disregard causing injury is likely to be (without having read this post or any other articles thoroughly) the lesser charge in exchange for the guilty plea. Repeatedly kicking someone in the back while they're lying on the floor would be intentional rather than reckless and the original charges probably reflected that.
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Yes the sentence seems light, but actually I don't think sending Veitch to prison would help anyone really. It'd make me feel a bit better, for a little while, but then what?
Well sending him down for the same sentence as your average unwhite man would get, would demonstrate to those who blindly follow the sensible sentencing trust's rants, just how destructive throwing people in jail really is.
Many NZers appear to have adopted a particularly nasty attitude towards the smaller weaker men thrust into the dog eat dog environment that some kiwi jails have become. How many times have we heard "If they didn't want to get bashed they shouldn't have broken the law"?
[Sorry dude -- I've removed a paragraph here. I understand your point, but I won't have you speculating that prison rape might be a good thing in any way. - RB]
Remember when NZ got so upset after the whitefella son of a bourgeois family got beaten to death while in custody. The corrections department was caught flat-footed. Around 20 young men a year die just in Mt Eden prison so this death wasn't 'spun' at all initially.
Too late the penny dropped in corrections - those other deaths were of unwhites or token unwhite (ie poor) young men.
Cynics wouldn't surprised to hear one of the tongue in groovers currently loudly demanding Veitch's testes for ear-rings privately concede that Veitch's incarceration would be bad for business that it would cause domestic violence sentences to be reduced long term.
But all of that speculation is' for the cat' as they say in Germany. There was no way Veitch was gonna go to jail and most of us recognise that 'deep in our bones'.
The thing that really s**ts me about this is was yet another example of a media figure complaining when he/she got treated the same as a 'punter' (ie a non media person).Too many in the media seem to regard themselves as some sort of protected sepecies, immune from the campaigns of distortion and sensationalism that anyone else unlucky enough to be deemed 'newsworthy' has to endure.
Can't help wondering how many stories about league and/or union players "going the biff with their missus" Veitch has run in the course of his media 'career'.
These talking heads are a dime a dozen. It takes a little skill to learn how to smile facing the correct camera, and read from a teleprompt seemingly spontaneously, whilst a boss's lackey is ranting 19 to the dozen in your ear, the sort of skill that comes to most humans given sufficient practise though.
Judging by the numbers of unemployed media personalities there are more than enough of these types to go around. So we should be insisting that any 'tv personality' who annoys sufficient members of the public gets the flick to be replaced by another fresh outta media training school every time. -
I may be a bit hard-hearted over this, but I find the professed 7 failed suicide attempts (according to the tv interview last night) ludicrous. Seven failed attempts? That is some serious incompetence!
I can see the odious little creep needs help...
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Okay, I need everyone to be careful about what they say and not make actionable claims about Veitch. This doesn't mean you can't have a very strong opinion, just not a defamatory one.
It appears these pricks are serious, and that a a heavy phone call has gone in to at least one media organisation today.
Frankly, I think they've lost the plot.
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Agree about caution. Can one of our legally savvy friends perhaps link to info about what "actionable" looks like?
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He is a broadcaster, that's his work; and it would be a grossly unfair punishment to declare that he cannot work. Broadcasters will make their own calculations on how and when they ought present him to an audience.
Let me put my hand up and say now that never would be a great time. The channel will be changed if I see Veitch on my TV.
He's a role model, and, as we so often bang on about with role models, he's got responsibilities associated with that. For my part he would need to have not only done the right thing but gone further and used his public position to make anti-DV ads. Something along the lines of "I did it once and look what a c*** it made me" would have done nicely thanks.
Behaving the way he has sends a message. Putting him back into broadcasting will affirm that message. That's just arse.
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Well sending him down for the same sentence as your average unwhite man would get, would demonstrate to those who blindly follow the sensible sentencing trust's rants, just how destructive throwing people in jail really is.
Hear, hear. Speaking of the SST (I love how it acronimises just like the Sunday Star Times - destiny in a name, or two), have they asked for his head on a stick yet? No? How odd.
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Defamatory statements have a pretty wide definition.
They "tend to lower a person in the estimation of right-thinking members of society, or that tends to cause the person to be shunned or avoided, or that tends to cause the person to be exposed to hatred, contempt or ridicule." From http://www.howtolaw.co.nz/html/ml146.asp
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