Re: Ben Flower : Sat Oct 11, 2014 11:59 pm  

nottinghamtiger wrote:

You have little experience of the law.
As much as Flower could put forward an argument for self-defence relating to the first punch (and even that would be pushing it), he certainly did not have the legal right to inflict further injury once his "attacker" was lying on the floor unconscious.
There are numerous similar cases tried in the courts every week.

No, there would be a legal issue if Flower had clearly made the conscious decision to attack a defenceless man, he didn't, he followed up and hit him roughly one second after the first hit with barely enough time for Hohaia to even hit the ground. Your viewpoint has been skewed by watching the slow-motion replays with a 4-5 second delay between punches, that isn't how it actually happened.

bewareshadows wrote:

HTH

I don't think anyone would be prosecuted in real life for colliding while chasing a kick, and as far as I can tell nobody was suggesting that Hohaia should be prosecuted for his blindside attack on Flower, so no, it didn't help really.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:00 am  

headhunter wrote:

I don't think anyone would be prosecuted in real life for striking a player while chasing a kick, and as far as I can tell nobody was suggesting that Hohaia should be prosecuted for his blindside attack on Flower, so no, it didn't help really.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:01 am  

Hohaia was taken out first then ran into Flower with his buffers up. Flower then smacks him.

Nowt much wrong there, a bit of biff, sin bin for both in my opinion.

Then Flower goes crazy. Totally and utterly unacceptable. One of the worst things I've seen on a rugby pitch. Rightly sent off and should spend a good portion of 2015 on the sidelines. 12-15 game ban.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:01 am  

The judge just gives a slap on the wrist due to prison overcrowding anyway!

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:04 am  

Judge would throw it out for wasting the courts time.

It would have to be a civil action for anyone to bother.

There is no money in it for lawyers and no justice in it for the courts.

Leave it to the sporting body to sort out.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:06 am  

headhunter wrote:

Stop this nonsense. Flower would not be prosecuted even if this happened in the street, he was attacked without warning and would be deemed to have been protecting himself. Watch the actual incident and not the slow-motion replay and there was maybe one second between punches, yes he hit him on the ground but it wasn't a 'pre-meditated assault on an unconscious man'. The most that would happen in everyday life would be that Flower would be locked up for the night and released with a warning.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:07 am  

headhunter wrote:

I don't think anyone would be prosecuted in real life for colliding while chasing a kick, and as far as I can tell nobody was suggesting that Hohaia should be prosecuted for his blindside attack on Flower, so no, it didn't help really.

Your defence of Flower instigating it is embarrassing.

A "collision" usually involves accidentally running into someone or putting arms out to protect yourself to push a man to the side. It doesn't involve sticking your arm out deliberately and clocking someone around the head, irrespective of whether it was just a tap or aggressive.

Flower instigated the whole incident, Hohaia took exception to being clocked around the head and ran in.

In terms of the Hohaia incident, most of his arm is on the upper body of Flower. His elbow never touches his face and it's no worse than a gentle shove with the forearm. There's no intent to injure just handbags. Hohaia may get a warning for his part.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:11 am  

headhunter wrote:

No, there would be a legal issue if Flower had clearly made the conscious decision to attack a defenceless man, he didn't, he followed up and hit him roughly one second after the first hit with barely enough time for Hohaia to even hit the ground. Your viewpoint has been skewed by watching the slow-motion replays with a 4-5 second delay between punches, that isn't how it actually happened.

It would be a good argument to have.
For me, it's clear before Flower punches Hohaia that he is on the floor, defenceless and unconscious. Even if it's a matter of seconds, he has time to not throw the punch - he simply cannot claim to be acting in self defence.
As a precedent (and because the footage is on Youtube) I'd suggest you look at Joey Barton's conviction. At his trial it was accepted that he was initially acting in self defence, but once the victim was on the floor he chose to continue to attack him. The time period between the punch considered to be in self defence and the first punch considered to be assault was less than a second.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:16 am  

Fully wrote:

Your defence of Flower instigating it is embarrassing.

A "collision" usually involves accidentally running into someone or putting arms out to protect yourself to push a man to the side. It doesn't involve sticking your arm out deliberately and clocking someone around the head, irrespective of whether it was just a tap or aggressive.

Flower instigated the whole incident, Hohaia took exception to being clocked around the head and ran in.

In terms of the Hohaia incident, most of his arm is on the upper body of Flower. His elbow never touches his face and it's no worse than a gentle shove with the forearm. There's no intent to injure just handbags. Hohaia may get a warning for his part.

No, my defence of the 'Flower instigating' is that it was a collision between two players chasing a kick in the first two minutes of a Grand Final, maybe you don't notice when this happens multiple times in every single match, I'm sure you wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't indirectly led to a man being sent off, either way it certainly didn't warrant Hohaia running 15 yards to smash an unsuspecting Flower in the face.

Nice shot of the 'gentle shove' BTW that good guy Lance ran 15 yards to do.

Re: Ben Flower : Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:19 am  

But it wasn't a collision, as I've pointed out. You don't run with your arm down the side and then stick your arm out across someone's head as you're running if you're going to collide. Your arms would be in front of you as I've already described. You're wrong, end of - it's plain as day.

I'm sure if Flower had picked the ball up and scored, Hohaia would have ran to the ref and told him to check it for being taken out - would have still been picked up. If it was just a collision do you think Hohaia would have been incensed by it? Give over man.

And a still image proves nothing. You have to see before and after. I - like many others - have watched it numerous times. He comes running in and yes, makes contact with the head, but it is just handbags. May have got a yellow but we'll never know.

Are you a Wigan fan?