many thanks...

excuse my ignorance, but if heinous does not sound like penis... what does it sound like?

(I've always thought that I was quite good at this sort of stuff....)

Sacha, I never said that anyone was unreasonable, but some comments read more reasonably to me. That was one of them - and so yes, it was useful.

All and any action should be taken against family violence. Absolutely. 100% absolutely. It is not OK.

Yes it ain't good enough anymore, however the circumstances of this situation means it maybe all we have....

...but I don't think anyone has said no action should or could be taken, its all a matter of WHAT action should be taken and those being being labeled as veitch apologists are merely noting that in our legal world before you can decide "what action" you need to know details, important details. not the kind of vague details we've had so far, (shatter, snapped, broken cracked, push kick, sustained, merciless etc) but accurate details. then we can attribute the correct amount of hatin'...

now that, to me, is one of the most sensible things I've read on this thread, (not that I don't appreciate where everyone else is coming from....)

I haven't read one comment here that I think is apologist. Far from it in fact...

I personally don't think that it will get to the Courts (even though I think it should). I think a historical action such as is very difficult to prove and that Veitch's statement was very carefully worded to not admit too much.

Which means that this may remain clouded in mystery for us all.
I hope I'm wrong.

Clearly not. I'm just pointing out that the little 'we weren't there! we don't know!' dance some of you are doing over this particular issue has a smidge of the Doth Protest Too Much about it.

Yeah, but what do we have to gain by Protesting Too Much?
I don't know Veitch. Never met the guy.

I just want discussion to move back to the centre ground sometimes and not be to far in either direction, which conversations like this can do....
All I am saying is that there is a lot of stuff that we don't know, and until we do know it (from the Courts, Woman's Weekly, whatever...) we are making huge assumptions....

That's a brilliant way to approach any and all issues. Isn't it funny how people keep crazily trying to, like, *find out stuff*, when they could just give up, safe in the assumption that if they weren't there, they have no hope of ever knowing anything?

But we're not trying to"find out stuff" here (and by here I mean "The System".
All we are doing (right now) is chinese whispering....

Yes, of course, let's just make things up ...

Wasn't the post yesterday, when someone said "shattering her back", making stuff up?
The article that you quote verbatim above says "fracturing".
All degrees of badness I know, but these things do have a habit of growing....

If we all followed your terrifyingly stringent standards for facts and evidence before discussing any issues, Ian, I think we might end up shutting down PA System altogether...

Yeah, why let a little common sense get in the way of a good discussion when we can have conjecture and hysteria.....

shattered back...

Kicked repeatedly...

smashed...

The facts of the matter are that none of us were there and so any "facts and evidence" that we have is all supposition...

$100K to snap my spine repeatedly?

um... isn't that just a bit emotive.....?