Australian Rugby Player loses career over 7 year old event... is this right?

Great Debates
1

A big news topic here in Australia at the moment isRugby League player Matthew Johns and his involvement in a group sex scandal that took place in New Zealand in 2002.

The edited highlights of the scandal is that, in 2002, a group of Rugby Players were on tour in New Zealand and Mr. Johns and at least one other player invited a young woman back to their hotel room, where it was made pretty clear that sex would be involved, and all parties involved consented to this at that point.

However, over the course of the evening, it would seem that a number of other members of the sports club also became… involved in the activity, which the young woman in question may or may not have been OK with. The players involved all swore the sex was consensual, the woman disagrees.

At any rate, she soon went to the police and filed a complaint in relation to the issue, which was taken seriously (to the point where NZ police officers flew to Australia and interviewed every. single. club member who was on the tour, regardless of whether they were involved or not) and ultimately no charges were laid over the event.

Fast forward seven years and Mr. Johns is now a high-profile sports presenter for Channel Nine and a coach for an A-list Victorian league club. Until this afternoon, when he was [del]sacked[/del] stood down indefinitely (allegedly by mutual agreement) over his involvement in the incident.

I don’t have a very high opinion of most Rugby players, and whilst I don’t doubt that whatever happened in that NZ hotel room in 2002 was almost certainly in a legal grey area after a certain point, the fact remains that the police laid no charges after the event and it was seven years ago.

So why is it suddenly in the news again, with the various Football Codes announcing their intention (once again) to “improve player’s attitudes towards women”, everyone getting suitably outraged over the incident (with the relevant parties taking their positions on the “Footy Players are Neanderthals!” and “Women who hang around Footy Players are sluts who know what they’re getting involved with!” sides of the fence)?

It’s not like it’s being used as corroborative evidence relating to something that happened a week or so ago- I mean, had Mr. Johns had been recently implicated in a group sex scandal and this was being brought up in a “This isn’t the first time he’s done this!” then I could understand it (to an extent).

Anyway, the debate here is this: Is it right for something like this to be brought up seven years after it happened, was investigated, and found to not be illegal- and then used to end someone’s career?

2

Siple answer - NO… Complicated answer - if the ship is going down, jump ships! So yes… NRL has been embroiled in this unwittingly and for them to do nothing means the NRL (and Chanel 9) is ignoring it. Letting Matty go is the simplest and most PC thing they can do.

Hey… I’m on Matts side - I believe it was consensual - I have known women like this (before someone here complains, rean the asterix below). And they do this becasue they don’t know any better … get into situations like this, i mean.

  • However, I did speak to my wife about this, and she had an experience in her younger life where her so called male friend started taking her clothes off… she panicked, but in her panic didn’t do anything and just let it happen. She was a shy girl then. So maybe this woman wanted Matt, and when things started going wrong, she panicked and let it happen.
3

No its not right, and please. He is a league player. There is a difference between the codes ya know.

And also, depending on why charges were never brought, I don’t think its particularly fair to bring it up even if he is involved in another such incident

4

By stepping down, is he now able to sue for defamation of character?

5

Which would be very unfortunate, but not justification for punishing the men involved.

The woman didn’t in any way indicate that she was not consenting. And contrary to some extremist feminist wishes, the majority of sexual acts by human beings are not preceded by clear and vocal consent. They are initiated by one party pushing things progressively further and if no objections are raised intercourse takes place. It’s very unfortunate that some women may panic and become totally unable to articulate or otherwise signal a lack of consent, but that doesn’t make the man having sex with them in any way criminal, at least morally.

The idea that someone can be punished when there is absolutely no way they could know they were committing a crime is outrageous.

6

Not a chance.

a) He was never publicly named by anyone. He was identified by rumour, message boards etc and later admitted himself, willingly, that he was involved.

b) The chances of winning in jury trial on this issue are slim, and if he did win he would get nothing. Journalists can report almost anything with impunity so long as they have a source, which they did in this case. So he would have to sue the “victim”. And a presumably average woman versus a multi-millionaire sports star. What are the odds of winning that? And if he did win what would the payout be?

c) It’s a hiding to nothing. The case would be a media sensation, and he would forever be that nasty brute who sued the woman he raped because she spoke out. IOW even if he wins he loses.
This is one of the problems of the internet. A person can be unidentified by the mass media but in such a way that they still area able to be readily publicly defamed. Yet again, the law hasn’t quite caught up with the technology.

7

It seems bizarre that he was given the job and then sacked based on this. As I recall it, that incident was HUGE at the time, front page on all the papers, subject of many talk shows, etc. So why would he get the job in the first place, if something like this would deem him to be unworthy of it?

8

The game is called Rugby league. So it’s still technically correct to call him a rugby player- unless you’re somehow trying to say that AFL or Union players are somehow less prone to getting drunk and doing silly/regrettable things?

Blake is right that Johns is completely stuffed in this- there’s nothing at all he can do. His reputation has been destroyed, it’s pointless trying to seek financial redress from anyone, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s some sort of off-field political motivation behind this.

I can see both sides here- if the woman did not say she no longer wished to continue the activities, then the players can hardly be held responsible for not knowing she was no longer giving consent. But in her defence, I imagine it would be pretty hard for a young woman to try and tell a bunch of drunk, horny, macho footy players that she didn’t want to do what they were doing and could they please stop?
All I can say is that perhaps society needs to stop putting Footy Players on a pedestal and expecting them to be “role models” as well as athletes…

9

I’m not sufficiently lacking in cynicism to believe that the gigantic PR/advertising/media/sponsorship behemoth that is the power behind all the football codes these days doesn’t cry crocodile tears on all these scandals before turning away and laughing all the way to the bank. Every time a player gets caught with recreational drugs, or accused of sexual assault or commits dramatic adultery or has a fight in a bar and gets arrested it just adds fuel to the publicity machine. I don’t doubt that the players do the wrong thing on occasion, but these things get blown out of all proportion to an extent that means that all sense goes out the window. And they get blown out of proportion because Joe (and Josephine) Public *loooovvves *them a good scandal and slurp up stories of this sort like a dog licking up vomit. The only difference being that the dog doesn’t kid itself that its appalled by the vomit but just licking it up so as to be informed about how bad and naughty the vomitee was. Tsk tsk.

10

I suspect there may be money involved with the woman appearing and the story being told after this length of time.

The public trial of Johns is like a star chamber.

I have no dog in this fight but why single out one sportsman (who happen to be now high profile). Who were the others and why weren’t they featured?

11

I know every time I consent to sex with a guy, I secretly hope a bunch of his buddies are going to run a train on me.

That being said… this is odd. No charges were laid. It was seven years ago. If reporters can’t find a whole mess of more recent sports sex scandals to busy themselves with, they’re not doing their jobs. Or there’s something going on in NZ that the rest of us don’t know about – did he testify against someone? Cross a big media owner or something?

12

Are you trying to imply something here, or is this just MPSIMS stuff that somehow snuck into GD?

13

I totally agree - and that’s why they weren’t charged 7 years ago (well, that or the lack of evidence). And as you can see from my initial answer, I did say “NO”. Funny thing is… this morning I heard that she consented to having sex with TWO players :smiley: … so the story turns again. And hey, if I was a third or fourth guy, in my testosterone filled youth, and I saw/heard that there was a threesome going on and everyone is invited - MAYBE I too would jump in for the excitement/experience. I was not a very pushy kid, and if I saw NO noticible objection (from the female), why should I stop? (MINUS the fact that this isn’t everyones cup of tea)

YES… and this usually happens once you marry, too!!! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

14

See my post. He’s the highest profile, so his is the biggest story. There’s miles and miles in this story. It’s got tall poppy cut down, crime, sex, adultery, celebrity and footy. After the Johns is sacked/steps down story , there will be the Johns puts it all behind him and is re-instated story. Hopefully his marriage will break up, that’s a great story, and if they get back together that’s another great story. With any luck he’ll kill himself, we’d lap that up. Then the media could have some great self reflection stories about how bad they are, as well as some stories about how his suicide was only proper given what a bad, naughty boy he’s been. Actually, even better would be if he tried but failed, so you could have the “why I tried to kill myself” story as well as the “he tried to kill himself” story.

We have seen the enemy and he is us.

15

Oh this is such a Percy le Blanc story :stuck_out_tongue: … gonna miss him

16

Because of the possibility of confusion between Rugby Union and Rugby League, the convention, for historical reasons, is that when one refers to “Rugby” without any other modifier, one is referring to Rugby Union. “Rugby League” is referred to by its full name, or just as “League”. “League” and “Union” would, I agree, be better ways of discriminating, but that’s just not how it is.

17

Say-Do you work for the Courier Mail?

I am not sure if it’s fair or not. It depends on your assumptions.

I think if it wasn’t clearly consensual then the guy should have been punished. For me, the main reason to punish him for something like this is to prevent it from happening again. Assuming it was a proper investigation then seven years later it’s become an issue for reasons beyond preventing the victimization of another woman.

18

Nah, just been reading it for nearly 35 years.

19

Spot on interpretation… You’re not in any of my media classes at Uni, are you? :slight_smile:

You missed the “Suburban Housewife talks about how John’s disgrace caused her son to abandon playing footy at primary school and her pre-school daughter now has a pathological fear of all footy players because they might touch her in a bad way” feature story, though. :wink:

20

Why do you think he should he be punished for committing an act that is neither illegal nor unethical as far as I can see?

Seriously, how often in your life have you had sex where it was clearly consensual? And by clearly I mean that both parties actually verbalized consent? While that has happened for me it is more usually as I described above: one party or the other pushing the limits and if there isn’t any indication of a lack of consent intercourse occurs. Maybe an “ooh take me” at some point pretty far down the track isn’t unheard of, but in my experience even that isn’t incredibly common.

So are you saying that I should be punished for all the times I will cheerfully and publicly admit that I have had sex with women when " it wasn’t clearly consensual"? Because none of the women involved ever felt that way.

But if you aren’t saying that then how exactly do my experiences, (and I gather that of most people) differ from that of of Johns, except that it was a group affair ?

Or are you perhaps using some other definition of “clearly consensual”?

And why should something like this be prevented form ever happening? Do you feel there is something inherently wrong with a grown woman having sex with multiple grown men that we should prevent it?

I’m confused just what it is that you feel was so objectionable here that it needs to be punished. A group of apparently consenting adults decided to have sex, one of them later said that she didn’t really consent to have sex with all the other parties but never articulated that because she was embarrassed/panicked/felt intimidated (but never was intmidated). If we take all this at face value then it’s unfortunate but no party seems to have committed any act that was unethical or illegal. It was at worst a completely innocent misunderstanding. So why should anyone be punished?