Anger Management

Anger management has been quite topical in the news this week, due to an incident on the weekend involving Federal Labor politician Belinda Neal and her husband, NSW Education Minister, John Della Bosca (more of that later, but I’ll mention a couple of other angry people first).

A man in England was punched and knocked unconscious, and is now fighting for life in hospital, after being accused of queue-jumping in a supermarket. He was accused of jumping the queue by a woman, who then rang her boyfriend. When he arrived minutes later, the woman then allegedly pointed to the man, who the boyfriend then punched. According to a supermarket employee:

“He fell backwards and his head hit the ground. He just never got up. I didn’t see the punch but I saw the blood everywhere.”

Another man said:

“The victim was simply standing at the entrance to the shopfloor. He was hit once with a powerful punch and slumped to the floor.”

The injured man is not expected to survive. All because some stupid woman could not just chill out in the line, read a magazine and just wait a few minutes, and happened to have a violent thug for a boyfriend. Arseholes.

Then we had Sarah May Ward, who allegedly ran down Eli Westlake in Sydney last weekend, after an argument in a convenience store. It is alleged that the argument started over some cheese balls being thrown by Mr Westlake or his friends at Ms Ward’s car. The argument continued for about five minutes as Ward drove along Lithgow Street until she allegedly told her passenger: “I’ve had enough of these guys.” Ward allegedly drove the car once into Mr Westlake and her car collided with Mr Westlake’s leg and he was pushed to the side of the car. Security camera footage from a nearby bar allegedly shows Mr Westlake trying to walk away and Ward reversing the car out of the driveway on Lithgow Street. Shortly after, further footage shows Ward “deliberately driving the motor vehicle at the deceased and other witnesses, mounting the curb, crossing a grass nature strip and travelling over a small tree [before] striking Mr Westlake.

According to police:

“CCTV shows this to be a deliberate act by the accused with the vehicle accelerating towards the deceased and with no attempt to stop the vehicle prior to or after the collision.”

Ward was arrested and taken to Chatswood police station, where she was charged with murder, dangerous driving, driving without a licence and mid-range drink driving. Police alleged that Ward drank two bottles of wine, smoked two cones of marijuana, and took four five-milligram valium tablets and an ecstasy tablet during Friday, at a party at a friend’s house and at a bar in Chatswood (obviously just a quiet night out for her?). She has an extensive history of traffic offences, “including previous low and mid-range [drink driving] and unlicensed offences”, police said. She had also been prescribed dexamphetamine and valium tablets for depression. No doubt all this drug use will be trotted out when it comes time to defend the murder and other charges ….as I’ve said many times before drug or alcohol impairment should never be allowed to be accepted as a defence or mitigation to crimes – I believe if you render yourself senseless, you’re entitled to be fully responsible for your actions in that state …. don’t like that, don’t write yourself off with drugs or piss. Simple!

So because a 37 year old woman, who should have been mature enough to deal with it, but obviously wasn’t, due to being off her face on drugs on alcohol, was unable to control her temper, a young man is senselessly killed. Hope she ends up getting the maximum for murder, she deserves it.

Finally we have the angry Belinda Neal, who with her husband John Della Bosca last weekend, allegedly got into an argument with staff at Iguana’s restaurant in Gosford, Ms Neal apparently objected when their group was asked by staff to move to a different table, and during the argument things got heated and she threatened to have the place closed down, to get staff sacked etc. Eventually they left, which is another story as Della Bosca drove home, something which he had told NSW Parliament he wouldn’t be doing, as he had recently lost his license for speeding offences (technically he still has a license as the revocation process hasn’t been completed yet).

Then we got into a battle of duelling statutory declarations, with a number of Iguanas staff and managers setting out their version of events. Then suddenly the next day the management rescinded theirs and apologised to the 2 politicians, after a series of phone calls. What has also emerged is that Mr Della Bosca and Ms Neal had connections with Ray Awadullah, a part owner of the restaurant. (I can imagine what happened in the various phone calls leading up to the withdrawal of the statutory declarations and the apologies ….owner decides he doesn’t need grief from politicians, leans on managers and staff to pull their heads in, along with threats of legal action, ie “do you really want to press this, I’m going to sue the arse off you if you do?”). However, some of the staff members have stuck by their version of the events as has another witness. Meanwhile, Neal and Della Bosca’s group has provided their own statutory declarations, which are of course very different to the staff’s. Now police are reported to be investigating the possibility that false statutory declarations have been made, which is a reasonably serious crime. I’d be fairly safe betting this will end up going nowhere …. too much of a political hot potato for the police to handle, so they’ll find insufficient evidence to back a charge of making a false declaration (ie someone may have been wrong but they genuinely held the belief that what they said happened did in fact happen).

Anyway, given the choice between who to believe in this case, I know where I stand. So apparently does Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Deputy Julia Gillard, who have called Ms Neal to task over her behaviour. She has been told to undergo anger management counselling. (This last article linked to has plenty of dirt on Belinda Neal – its quite entertaining, and is consistent with stories I’ve heard from friends who live up that way). Many politicians are incredibly arrogant, and quite prepared to thrown their weight around to get their own way, but Ms Neal appears to be extremely aggressive even for a politician. (and its not only politicians, I’ve seen through work some of their hangers on get a very inflated sense of their own importance).