Australia
ARU not chasing second offender in Beale text scandal
ESPN Staff
October 28, 2014
The Kurtley Beale saga will not end quietly © Getty Images
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Just when ARU officials thought they may finally have put to bed the unsavoury Kurtley Beale text message scandal, it has reared its ugly head once more after Di Patston, the Wallabies business manager who resigned after it became public she'd been subjected to highly offensive messages sent by the player to team-mates on the What'sApp software, spoke out in frustration after he was fined AUS$45,000 (£24,665) by a code of conduct hearing.

But it's not just Patston's sense of dismay that Beale had lied to her in June, when he apologised for inadvertently sending her grotesque images of an obese nude woman with her name in two separate captions below, that will continue the whole sorry saga after the tribunal ruled on Friday night that the second, more offensive, image had originated from a third party.

The pressure is on the ARU to investigate whether another Wallabies player sent the second text, but officials widely condemned for their handling of the episode since Beale and Patston were involved in a mid-flight spat four weeks ago said on Monday they weren't about to go looking for answers.

Pulver and his cohorts must go now

© Getty Images
  • For the sake of rugby, Australian Rugby Union chief executive and self-proclaimed "custodian of the game" Bill Pulver must go NOW, Greg Growden writes.

ARU chief executive Bill Pulver was unavailable for comment, but an ARU spokeswoman said the union would investigate further only "if new, relevant information comes to light".

The news comes while News Limited reported that ARU officials allowed Patston to retain her phone when she resigned, and failed to check the log or to decipher messages. News Limited also reported that the second message was not sent to a single Wallabies player.

Patston told Pulver that the second message was also sent by Beale to the players, but News Limited reported that "IT experts and the players themselves have confirmed that no such second message was registered on What's App".

News Limited reported that IT experts who had seen both messages had also "confirmed they had not come from the same phone and that the composition, colour tones and clarity of the images were different".

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd with AAP

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