Dustin Martin

[sainters4eva]

Don't forget it was the staff who helped him to jump the queue to get into the restaurant and then fed him shots when he was obviously already quite affected by alcohol. Why didn't they intervene earlier? Another case of so called footy stars being given special treatment?

[ripplug66]

Don't forget it was the staff who helped him to jump the queue to get into the restaurant and then fed him shots when he was obviously already quite affected by alcohol. Why didn't they intervene earlier? Another case of so called footy stars being given special treatment?

Yes special treatment until they do something stupid and then they really get special treatment.

[bigcarl]

Well he didn't actually physically hurt her, did he.

Not a good look, though, and the AFL will be pushing Richmond hard to make it a big penalty.

If he played for us, I'd be pushing for a slap on the wrist under the gun player rule.

Ban him from the pre-season games and get him help for substance abuse problems and anger management. Make him donate a hefty sum to some violence against women charity.

[#gosaintas]

all this carry on for threatening some nosy channel 7 chick with a chopstick. Laughable really.

[Jacks Back]

all this carry on for threatening some nosy channel 7 chick with a chopstick. Laughable really.

Oppo forum

[asiu]

thats the way
... send the thread with participation off to the dead zone

good thinking 99

[Moods]

And yet it seems the police began an investigation without the woman even knowing.

I don't think so. They got in touch with her, and she was happy for them to mount an investigation. W.O. is spot on. John Sylvester's article is rubbish - and he normally writes quite good stuff, so not sure how he could get it so wrong.

How do you charge someone with making threats to kill when one of the points of proof is that the victim felt fear that the offence could or would be carried out? She has to agree to give evidence, and not a policeman in the state is going to compel her to go to court without a signed statement saying as much - otherwise the cops bear the costs of the case if they lose, which will happen.

She has obviously agreed to sign up to a statement as to what happened.

I think you're confusing opening an investigation with laying charges.

Silvester has been a crime reporter in melbourne since the late 1970's. He states she first heard about it on twitter and felt betrayed by that... I'll go with he didn't just make that up.

Also, the hun article above says when the afl referred it to police they didn't bother to tell her. It also mentions an editorial from the previous day which apparently pointed out that the police don't need to receive a formal complaint to open an investigation.

I'm well aware of who Silvester is. I've got no doubt that police may be 'opening an investigation into this' but that's window dressing. Without a victim they have absolutely nothing and everyone who works in the field knows that. To have a victim they need a signed statement from her.

Police are far from perfect (as we've seen in the media this week) but they are right up there with umpires as easy targets for people to have a go at. I can't see how the police have botched this at all. People make presumptions about what the police do and how they do it.

Are you telling me that the police would have opened an investigation into this if one of the persons involved wasn't Dusty Martin? They would have ONLY after a complaint was made. The woman involved is an intelligent educated woman by the sounds of it. She would be capable of walking into a police station and reporting it and the investigation would normally start from there.

[markp]

And yet it seems the police began an investigation without the woman even knowing.

I don't think so. They got in touch with her, and she was happy for them to mount an investigation. W.O. is spot on. John Sylvester's article is rubbish - and he normally writes quite good stuff, so not sure how he could get it so wrong.

How do you charge someone with making threats to kill when one of the points of proof is that the victim felt fear that the offence could or would be carried out? She has to agree to give evidence, and not a policeman in the state is going to compel her to go to court without a signed statement saying as much - otherwise the cops bear the costs of the case if they lose, which will happen.

She has obviously agreed to sign up to a statement as to what happened.

I think you're confusing opening an investigation with laying charges.

Silvester has been a crime reporter in melbourne since the late 1970's. He states she first heard about it on twitter and felt betrayed by that... I'll go with he didn't just make that up.

Also, the hun article above says when the afl referred it to police they didn't bother to tell her. It also mentions an editorial from the previous day which apparently pointed out that the police don't need to receive a formal complaint to open an investigation.

I'm well aware of who Silvester is. I've got no doubt that police may be 'opening an investigation into this' but that's window dressing. Without a victim they have absolutely nothing and everyone who works in the field knows that. To have a victim they need a signed statement from her.

Police are far from perfect (as we've seen in the media this week) but they are right up there with umpires as easy targets for people to have a go at. I can't see how the police have botched this at all. People make presumptions about what the police do and how they do it.

Are you telling me that the police would have opened an investigation into this if one of the persons involved wasn't Dusty Martin? They would have ONLY after a complaint was made. The woman involved is an intelligent educated woman by the sounds of it. She would be capable of walking into a police station and reporting it and the investigation would normally start from there.

I'm saying it seems they started an investigation without her knowing.

That's all.

If the police botched it time will tell. But Silvester is a highly respected crime reporter and he's gone very hard here.

If the afl and rfc pressured her time will tell. But (especially) if Martin ends up being charged and they did pressure her then it should be more than his head on the block.

And according to the Hun article in the first interview with her in Sydney the afl and rfc representatives gave her the impression the offence was not viewed as a criminal one. Being ignorant of all her rights doesn't mean she forgoes any.

[saynta]

This is just getting worse.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/woman- ... b7ecb0a0fe


"THE woman who claims Dustin Martin threatened to stab her with a chopstick has launched a withering attack on the AFL over its handling of the case.

The 30-year-old claims that the league “leaned’’ on her to water down evidence that Martin threatened “I’ll f***ing stab you’’ in Chapel St’s Mr Miyagi restaurant on Saturday night.

One AFL officer then gloated to her “we’ve washed our hands of this’’ once the investigation was handed over to the police yesterday, the shaken victim — a Channel Seven staffer — has confided to friends.

“It has been incredibly stressful,’’ she has told a friend.

“The investigation has been seriously flawed. The AFL needs to overhaul their process so the focus is on a victim’s welfare and not the branding of the league.’’

One friend said the woman was particularly devastated that the league had “actively sought to discredit her story’’ after police took charge last night, telling journalists that other diners had downplayed the incident.

On her first day of interviews with the AFL, friends said the woman had been told by integrity investigators the club viewed her as a credible witness and did not dispute her claims.

But by the third day they were questioning her version of events.

“I felt heavily leaned on to water down how threatened and intimidated I felt on the night,’’ she told a friend.

In her final interview with the AFL — a four-hour session — she said officers repeatedly questioned whether she wanted to proceed with her claim that Martin threatened to stab her with a chopstick, warning then they would have to refer it to police and it could end his career.

The Herald Sun can reveal two other people who have backed up her story are being contacted by police, who are working though the entire reservation list for the night.

Detectives from Stonnington Crime Investigation Unit today visited the restaurant, where CCTV is understood to have captured Martin’s arrival, but not the incident.

It comes despite a senior staffer at the restaurant, which allowed Martin to jump the queue and down several shots despite reports he was in “space land’’, had told the Herald Sun earlier this week that none of its CCTV cameras were operating.
CCTV is understood to have caught Martin arriving at the restaurant. Picture Norm Oorloff

Richmond has also come under fire, with one source close to the victim claiming that on Monday morning, when she first complained, an officer said “there must be a better way to deal with it than through the media’’.

The victim has also revealed in her first interview with league and Richmond integrity officers, she was given the impression the offence was not viewed as a criminal one.

But when they presented their version of her statement back to her, it was littered with “falsifications’’ playing down the extent of her terror and Martin’s menace.

One AFL officer has since been accused by those close to the victim of “monstering’’ her.

Richmond president Peggy O’Neal today said the club was “concerned” for Martin who will travel to Queensland for a pre-season training camp with his Tigers teammates on Sunday.

“We’re concerned about Dustin and, of course, we’re disappointed with any kind of behaviour like that, but again, we don’t know all the facts and that’s what this investigation will show,” O’Neal said.
"
Anyone with information on the incident is encouraged to call the Crime Stoppers "

[saynta]

Sic 'em Rita

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinio ... e12ca21493


'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."

[ripplug66]

Sic 'em Rita

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinio ... e12ca21493


'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."

The woman Andrew Bolt. Anything she has an opinion should immediately be ignored.

[Dis Believer]

She is entitled

Actually that appears to be a great way of summing up your entire underlying belief system......

Actually no-one is "entitled" to anything. In our community we have rights, and we have responsibilities. One of our responsibilities is for our own well being - we are responsible as supposedly intelligent adults for not deliberately putting ourselves in harms way, by say confronting an obviously drug and/or alcohol effected person who was acting in an agitated fashion. Once we exercise our right to choose however, if we elect to follow that unwise path, we do not have a right to expect no harm to befall us.

As a diner at a restaurant, we do have the right to request the staff to take appropriate action to deal with another patron ho is behaving in an unacceptable fashion.

[samuraisaint]

Mods - can we have this moved to the opposition forum please? It has nothing to do with St. Kilda FC at all.

[skeptic]

Good to know that you're 'happy that know that at least the Richmond FC have been challenged to make a big call.'

Yes, let's have a few extra little quips like this. Because it's pretty funny, really, right?

Let's not admit the vile nature of the actual incident. Or the appalling nature of your earlier sentiments, such as:

'By threatening to call the club, she did in essence threaten him in a non-violent way. She is entitled to do this without risk of violence... But just because there shouldn't be a risk of violence doesn't mean there isn't. This isn't about blame but you can't argue that she isn't more vulnerable after confronting him then b4. It should have been the staff that dealt with this then the police. She still has the option of contacting the club the next morning regardless.

No, let's trivialise it and make some light-hearted banter. That's the way to go.

Miskycat, for whatever reason you're very emotionally loaded with regards to this topic and your consistent jumping off into ridiculous conclusions, misinterpretation of arguments and outright words in mouth syndrome is getting really boring.

And clearly I'm not the only one that thinks so. Get a gripe.

Sometimes when something comes across as really outrageous or trivial, it may just be because you yourself have failed to grasp what is actually being said.

In regards to the Richmond, i said right at the start of this thread that I felt the Richmond FC would sweep this under the rug. In a season where Hardwick is under pressure to win or a final or bust, I found it unlikely that they suspend arguably their best player. More likely to me they would have fined him $10000 and sent him to get some club counselling.

You know what, I am actually glad that they are now under pressure to actually dish out a proper punishment... There's reasons won't be altruistic as this will be a response to public pressure, but the little bugger is pbly looking at least at 12-15 weeks minimum and possibly a legal charge too. Good.

I personally took a bit of pride at our club's response to the whole Andrew Lovett saga, we threw up whatever flimsy reason for sacking the guy but i think cause and response was quite clear (personal opinion), and that decision pbly cost us a premiership.
M&M saga from what I've been able to piece together over the years seems a lot murkier and I back the club's judgement call there.

We sacked Stevie Lawrence too for his little indiscretion... Granted that was years ago now but another big stand nonetheless.

Now onto your other rant - for some reason the line attempted to quote really bothers you and i cannot for the life of me understand why.

You have an unsettled situation
The key point of danger is when Dusty is threatening that lady
The action that appears to trigger said threats was that lady saying what she said to Martin.

Now if I was approaching this like it was a clinical incident at a hospital (which is what I do), I would identify the lady saying something as the key point of escalation.

I don't know how an objective person can be offended by this or argue against it.

For some reason, when you hear this you think I'm saying that because this was the trigger of escalation, she brought this on herself. She didn't make Dustin threaten her... That was his choice... He chose to lose his temper, he chose threaten her, he declined to back down, or pull back, or apologise.

The lady CANNOT be held responsible for his behaviour because ultimately she has no control over it. She didn't physically force him to threaten her or be violent

At some point, your inability to make this distinction in what I'm saying becomes more about you and your own belief system then about mine. I have not in any shape or form trivialised this or apportioned blame back to the victim... And it's getting a little concerning that you can't grasp this

[asiu]

Get a gripe.

... already has one i think

[skeptic]

Get a gripe.

... already has one i think

Well you have me there

[Jacks Back]

thats the way
... send the thread with participation off to the dead zone

good thinking 99

I was trying to be ironic (or should that be moronic) seeing as though I started this thread, on this forum, but it should be on the opposition and general sports discussion forum. Everyone is also going around in circles anyway.

[asiu]

actually i did note u started it in here
(after i posted the above but)

yea ... a tad ironic i suppose.

... i just dont get the logic in sending one of the few threads thats 'happening'
off to wherever land .
no makem any sense to me ... it'll drop off the page as soon as interest wanes
or some other dropkick gives us another mirror to look in

Maybe (as the thread instigator) u could creatively rejig the thread title so it fits
in this forum ... but whatever ... tis all good

[Dis Believer]

Wow, that's great, you provided an unsubstantiated opinion piece, penned by a diversity lecturer........

OK - Some real fact - violent crime overall in Australia has been DECREASING for 5 years. In 2014, there were 421 homicides in Australia, and 61% of the victims were male - in other words males were killed at nearly twice the rate of females.

Males outnumbered as victims of homicide, robbery and assault. The one area females dominated as victims is sexual assault, no surprise there. Your writer is using that and some ambiguous terminology to create a misleading article. Men are 4 times more likely to commit violent crime and 4 times more likely to be a victim of it.

But a couple of cases (Jill Meagher and Luke Batty), tragic as they are, seem to be SPECIAL in the eyes of some. I wonder why the likes of Miskycat aren't up in arms over the 8 kids butchered by their mother in Cairns a year ago, or the 3 kids driven into a lake by their mother who watched them drown? Is that not indicative of an epidemic of infanticide - should we be running campaigns to stop violence by women towards their children ??

And my source is the ABS...... http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf ... enDocument

I did see those stats from the ABS before I posted that link. Don't agree with you that the article is misleading. Yes if you take the sexual assault figures out the equation, then men are more likely to be victims of violent crime. But why would you take the sexual assault figures out? In 2014, according to the ABS stats that you posted, 3500 men were victims of sexual assault and 17,000 women. How can you ignore that and claim men are more likely to be victims of violent crime? Is sexual assault not a violent crime? I'm also curious about the figures for plain assault. I could find figures for murder, manslaughter, armed robbery, robbery, sexual assault - but not for just assault.

I do agree with you though that it would be good for the male bashing in our culture to stop. It doesn't help. Men are abused and discriminated against as well, but it's rarely acknowledged.

The reason for putting the sexual assault bracket to one side is because it skews the perception of what we are talking about here. That is not to diminish the impact, trauma or gravity of that category, but it does create a false perception.
The situation we are talking about here is a confrontation in a public place with a stranger (putting aside his celeb status, they don't know each other). If we take the fact that the overwhelming majority of sexual assault assailants are known to their victims and the vast majority of sexual assaults do not occur in a public place, then statistically females are at far less risk of violence in public places than males. In fact outside of sexual assault, females are far safer full stop.

The first set of numbers I came across on assault victim breakdown:



Came from here: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violen ... sault.html

The next one:



That one came from here: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf ... tistics~63

The fact that our resident adherent of third wave feminism feels compelled to name one female homicide victim, the mother of one MALE victim of homicide and feels compelled to use her ideology's current war cry of "men's violence against women" simply highlights a lack of intellectual effort on her part. Unfortunately the general public are generally too lazy to do their own research these days and simply swallow whatever crap is regurgitated by what passes as our media these days. The fact is that a male is is two and a half times more likely than a female to be assaulted by someone he doesn't know in a public place, like a restaurant. The fact is that men are murdered at more than twice the rate that women are. !!

I want to know why miskycat hasn't started a f****** hashtag about that - or are victims of violence and murder only important if they're female.

th best one of all is the poor excuse for a journalist at the Feral Scum Wendy Tuohy, she's actually taken to having a topic called "Violence against Women and their Children". I laughed so hard I nearly spat out my coffee. Those poor kids she's referring to are statistically twice as likely to be abused by their mother as they are by their father !!! There's a nice little fact that is a bit inconvenient for Misky's "Women good, men bad" narrative. Get that one up ya......

[st.byron]

Mods - can we have this moved to the opposition forum please? It has nothing to do with St. Kilda FC at all.

I agree it's nothing to do with the Saints. But it's the off season and this thread is the most active in the forum, in between the snippets of camp, training and contract info. Given that I reckon it's ok to leave it on the main forum. It's generating a lot of discussion and things that get moved to the oppo or general forums do tend to lose steam.

[SuperDuper]

i am not playing down the incident at all... but geez Rita's reporting is, as usual, sensationalized to the point of dishonesty...

one example:
She claims "Richmond are concerned for Martin", as though their main concern is inappropriately for his welfare rather than the victims... and then you read the quote which was
"We’re concerned about Dustin.." which actually means they are concerned about his behaviour

[miskycat]

'Get that one up ya......' you write, True Believer.

You really are a revolting person, aren't you?

[Dis Believer]

'Get that one up ya......' you write, True Believer.

You really are a revolting person, aren't you?

No, not really, but the bait was taken as I suspected. Take the easy way out and pick on the sign off - not tackling any of the official statistics I see - what happened, did the sisterhood run out of slogans when a little truth and reality was injected into the issue......??

See the reality is you're not really interested in the situation, you just want the opportunity to chant from the song book of your ideology. If you actually, sincerely gave a crap about others, you would be railing against violence, full stop, and gender and your politics would have not part in it.......

Maybe you should retreat back to your safe space and discuss triggers with the sisters..........

[miskycat]

Yes, really, you are.

Revolting. Nasty. Contemptible.

'Retreat back to my safe space?' No. Please, continue with your invective.

[White Winmar]

Mods - can we have this moved to the opposition forum please? It has nothing to do with St. Kilda FC at all.

I beg to differ. This is all the fault of our appalling culture. Don't forget that just last year, the saints inquired about a trade involving Dusty. Surely that now makes him a "potential St.Kilda player", doesn't it? I think a fairer and more predictable headline would've been, "Former potential St.Kilda player Dustin Martin threatens woman."