..
Premier League footballer arrested on suspicion of
rape and false imprisonment at his home
Alex Winter, The Sun
13 Nov 2020, 15:18
A PREMIER League footballer in his 20s has been arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment and rape.
Cops made the arrest after an alleged incident at his home last month.
A Premier League footballer in his 20s has been arrested on suspicion of rape and false imprisonment
Credit: Getty Images - Getty
Today, cops confirmed officers had executed a warrant at an address and arrested a man on suspicion of rape and false imprisonment.
In the statement to MailOnline, detectives said the man is no longer in their custody.
They said: "He has since been released under investigation pending further enquiries."
The man has not yet been named for legal reasons.
No indication of what city he plays for! I'm sure there will be more to this story before long.
Aussie Media Conglomerate Boss, Hugh Marks, resigns over indiscretion
By Zoe Samios
November 14, 2020 — 3.33pm
Nine Entertainment Co chief executive Hugh Marks will step down after revealing he was in a relationship with a former colleague, bringing an end to five years at the top of one of the country’s biggest media companies.
Mr Marks told staff in an email on Saturday afternoon that he had begun the "process of moving on" and that the $4.2 billion television, publishing, digital and radio company would begin the job of finding his replacement on Monday. The announcement was made after the Nine board met at noon on Saturday and comes before News Corporation's Sunday Telegraph is expected to publish an article focussing on Mr Marks's personal life.
"I want to take this opportunity to tell you what a privilege it has been leading this business over a truly transformational period for both the media market generally, and particularly our business," said Mr Marks who indicated he wanted to help with a "smooth" transition to the next CEO.
The abrupt announcement of Mr Marks' resignation follows one of the best performing weeks for Nine on the ASX since it merged with Fairfax Media in 2018. Mr Marks told shareholders operating earnings would be 30 per cent up for the first half of the 2020-21 financial year at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday. Nine's streaming service, Stan, launched sports channel on Monday after securing broadcast deals with Rugby Australia, Wimbledon and The French Open.
However, the Nine board also held meetings last week to discuss human resources issues including Mr Marks' relationship with Nine's former managing director of commercial, Alexi Baker, according to sources familiar with the discussions. Mr Marks told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, in an article published earlier on Saturday, that his relationship with Ms Baker began when the pair were working together and she reported to the chief executive. The article said the relationship began in recent months.
Nine declined to answer questions about whether Ms Baker had received promotions or bonuses while working for Mr Marks.
Nine chairman Peter Costello was also asked at the company's AGM this week about an article in The Daily Telegraph from May which suggested Mr Marks was in a relationship with his executive assistant, Jane Routledge. Mr Costello said Mr Marks had not breached any company policies. Mr Marks has declined to comment further on the article other than to say “a lot of gossip is out of control”.
Mr Marks' departure has already sparked widespread speculation about his replacement with an executive search firm likely to be appointed to identify internal and external candidates. Industry sources said Stan chief executive Mike Sneesby and Nine publishing boss Chris Janz were the leading internal candidates.
Both Stan and the publishing divisions have performed strongly under their respective bosses. Nine sources who did not want to go on the record said chief sales officer Michael Stephenson and managing director of group and local markets Lizzie Young might consider applying for the top job.
Mr Marks was in charge of Ms Baker's salary and any bonuses she received before she resigned on October 1. Nine does not have a policy regarding relationships between staff.
Some Nine sources who did not want to go on the record claim the relationship with Ms Baker had nothing to do with Mr Marks' departure and that he always planned to leave after five years. Other sources close to Mr Marks said he believed some directors did not support him. Nine confirmed that the board was made aware of the relationship.
Mr Marks' thanked Nine chairman and former Liberal Treasurer Mr Costello in his note to staff "for the extraordinary support he has given to me and to the entire business over the past five years". The paragraph about Mr Costello appeared to be formated differently to the rest of the note.
The announcement of Mr Marks' resignation took place at the end of a week filled with coverage about whether relationships and affairs between colleagues is appropriate. ABC's Four Corners made allegations about allegedly inappropriate behaviour of Attorney-General Christian Porter and population minister Alan Tudge with female staffers on Monday.
Mr Marks is not the first television executive to resign amid scrutiny about relationships with staff. Seven West Media boss Tim Worner was embroiled in a scandal involving a former employee, Amber Harrison. He did not leave Seven until August 2019.
Mr Marks will continue in his role until a new chief executive is appointed, with some Nine sources saying this process could take months. Nine sources speaking on the condition of anonymity said that in the last few weeks Mr Marks has not been in the office because of persistent bad headaches. He was described as "emotional" in the Herald article in which he revealed his relationship with Ms Baker.
"Everyone wants to be happy," Mr Marks told journalist Andrew Hornery. "People think you should be superhuman in these roles, but you are still just a person."
As the first chief executive of the merged Nine and Fairfax Media business, Mr Marks will be remembered as one of the more influential media executives of the past decade. He took over the role of chief executive in November 2015 from long-standing Nine boss David Gyngell after two years as a non-executive director of the company. In the five years Mr Marks has run Nine, the business has changed dramatically.
After media ownership laws were relaxed, Mr Marks and then Fairfax boss Greg Hywood struck one of the biggest media deals of the decade, combining newspaper, online real-estate listings, radio and free-to-air television into a single organisation. Nine's brands include Domain, stations 3AW and 2GB and Pedestrian Group.
Mr Marks also led the company as it ended its four decade relationship with cricket and bought the broadcast rights to tennis tournaments such as The Australian Open. He has been one of media executives to lobby government and push for legislation to make tech giants Google and Facebook pay for the existence of news articles in the search engine and newsfeed.
"We have gone from being three separate, legacy media businesses in Nine, Fairfax Media and Macquarie Media, each with their own structural challenges, and created a business that now has a diversified revenue base across both advertising and subscription, and that has a clear growth strategy for decades to come," he said in his note to staff.
"We have demonstrated the importance of great content, be that in the powerful and unique journalism we create every day, across all platforms, or in entertainment, where the shows we build become household names and engage Australians in their millions. Because at the end of the day, we are, and will remain, a content business."
Nine was the only media organisation that cut costs without large redundancy rounds, renegotiating with banks or putting all staff on JobKeeper. Nines shares were trading at $1.55 when Mr Marks was appointed in November 2015. They closed at $2.44 on Friday. The company has outperformed its media peers in recent years.
Kenyan Olympic champion pleads not guilty to defilement of minor
By Sommer Brokaw
Conseslus Kipruto (on left), who won the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, appeared before a magistrate Monday on charges of defilement of a 15-year-old girl. File Photo by Kevin DIestsch | License Photo
Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Kenyan Olympic champion runner Conseslus Kipruto pleaded not guilty Monday where he appeared in court on charges of defilement of a 15-year-old girl.
Kipruto, 25, pleaded not guilty Monday morning in a court in Kenya in his hometown Kapsabet, which is the capital of Nandi County. The court released the man, who won gold for the 3,000 meter Steeplechase final at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on $1,850 cash bond.
Prosecutors said that the charges stem from a report to a local police station the teenager's parents made, alleging Kipruto eloped with their daughter on Oct. 20.
The 15-year-old allegedly went missing for three days, and once she returned home she refused to disclose where she had been, according to the police report, but upon looking at her phone log, police found that she had constantly been communicating with Kipruto.
With the age of consent being 18 in Kenya, the Olympic runner was charged with defilement of a 15-year-old girl. If found guilty, under the Sexual Offenses Act 2006, he could receive up to a 14-year prison sentence.
Kipruto appeared in the court before the magistrate through Zoom because of the COVID-19 pandemic with tight security and wearing a hood to avoid media pictures. The trial is set to begin on May 10.
Kipruto, who has also won a world championship in London in 2017 and in Doha, Qatar, in 2019, competed in only one race this year after testing positive for COVID-19 in August.
Well, I hope someone tests the girl for Covid19.
‘Rapist, pedophile and abuser’: Female Spanish player
refuses to pay tribute to Diego Maradona
30 Nov, 2020 16:18 /
While much of the football world has been mourning the passing of Diego Maradona, a female Spanish player refused to stand during a minute's silence, saying she would not do it for an 'abuser.'
Paula Dapena, who plays for Viajes Interrias FF, ignored the moment's silence in remembrance of Maradona by sitting on the pitch with her back turned while the rest of her teammates stood.
The act was taken before a friendly game between Viajes Interrias FF and Deportivo Abanca, with Dapena being widely discussed following her act of disobedience.
The 24-year-old, who is also known in her team as a woman of strong feminist ideals, later explained that she didn't want to observe the minute's silence for a person who she thought to be an 'abuser.'
"As soon as I found out that there would be an act in his memory, I refused to observe the minute's silence for a rapist, pedophile and abuser," she said, adding that there were no minutes of silence in recognition of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Her name is Paula Dapena, she plays for Viajes Interrías Female Football Club in Galicia,
northwestern Spain. She refused to keep a minute of silence for Maradona as a protest
because he was an abuser against women. Stand up for your values is easier said than done. Well done. pic.twitter.com/K4DP6KCDYA
— Jordi Arrufat (@Jordiarrufat) November 29, 2020
"A minute's silence was not observed for the victims. So, obviously, I'm not willing to observe one for an abuser and not for the victims," Dapena said.
The player's behavior was widely condemned on social media with many users pointing out that the Argentinian football legend was never found guilty any such crimes described by Dapena.
Of course, heroes are never found guilty of anything. But I admit this is the first I have heard of such accusations. But having heard of his penchant for drug use - anything is possible.
Maradona died on November 25 after suffering a heart attack at his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He was buried next to his parents in a private ceremony attended by only two dozen people.
Tributes to Maradona show how easily violence against women is ignored
Joan Smith, The Guardian
Fri 27 Nov 2020 13.52 GMT
Too often we’re in denial about the fact that heroes – such as Maradona and
Sean Connery – might also be abusers
An image commemorating Diego Maradona in Naples, Italy, November 2020.
Photograph: Alessandra Tarantino/AP
Imagine a man hitting his partner. The picture that comes to mind probably involves a scruffy individual, his hand raised and his face contorted with fury. We can all condemn that, can’t we? But what if the angry face is familiar, seen thousands of times in a very different context? If it belongs, say, to the world’s most famous and admired footballer, Diego Maradona?
Judging by the outpouring of grief that followed his death, at the age of 60, it seems too big an ask to admit that our heroes, especially our sporting heroes, have been credibly accused of domestic violence. Maradona’s face just doesn’t fit in that unpleasant picture – unless you’ve seen the video.
First aired on an Argentine TV channel six years ago, it appears to show Maradona hitting his then girlfriend, a former professional football player called Rocio Oliva, who was three decades his junior. Unsteady on his feet, Maradona shouts at her and then appears to strike her twice. The slaps are clearly audible on the soundtrack, as is Oliva shouting at him in Spanish: “Stop, stop.”
Maradona didn’t challenge the video’s authenticity, but he did deny hitting Oliva. “I grabbed the phone but I swear to God that I have never hit a woman,” he insisted. It wasn’t the first time Oliva accused Maradona of abusing her, although charges were never brought. Another incident occurred on a plane, in front of dozens of witnesses, when Maradona verbally abused Oliva before grabbing her by the neck. The couple split and got back together several times before Oliva left Maradona for good two years ago.
Maradona’s death on Wednesday happened to coincide with the international day for the elimination of violence against women. On the same day, official statistics revealed that a fifth of offences recorded by police in England and Wales during and immediately after the first national lockdown – amounting to more than a quarter of a million in three months – involved domestic abuse. These statistics might have given Maradona’s obituarists pause for thought, but they didn’t.
Domestic abuse is routinely overlooked or rendered invisible, especially if the alleged perpetrator is an elite sportsman or famous actor. When the Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, commentators initially bought his story that he believed she was an intruder. It was only much later, and after protracted legal proceedings, that Pistorius was found guilty of murder.
Relationships in which women are abused are often described as volatile, depersonalising blame. But Maradona’s jealous outbursts – he once threw Oliva out of his home in Dubai after wrongly accusing her of flirting with the Manchester United goalkeeper, David de Gea – will be horribly familiar to any woman who has experienced coercive control.
Last month glowing tributes were paid to the Scottish actor Sean Connery – recipient of a knighthood, among other honours – who had died at the age of 90. Like Maradona’s, his biography had an irresistible rags-to-riches element, with lots of references to the fact that he left school at 14 and did manual labour before becoming a hugely successful actor. “Our nation is today mourning one of our best-loved sons,” said Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
Predictably, most of the accounts of his life glossed over allegations that Connery was violent towards his first wife, the Australian actress Diane Cilento, leaving her bruised and battered. In her autobiography, published in 2006, Cilento described locking herself in a bathroom for protection after Connery hit her in the face, knocking her to the floor, and a second blow “sent me flying”.
It’s not even as if he was a repentant abuser. “I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman – although I don’t recommend doing it in the same way that you’d hit a man,” he said in an interview with Playboy in 1965. “An open-handed slap is justified, if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning.” He confirmed his views in an interview with Barbara Walters in 1987, not condemning domestic violence until 2006.
It is not as though these men are exceptions. There are a great many of them, and they aren’t defined by class, wealth or education. Abusers can be talented and attractive, something that fans of the actor Johnny Depp evidently struggled to believe when the judge in his libel action accepted most of the allegations made by his former wife, Amber Heard.
It may be painful for fans of elite sports stars and Oscar-winning actors to admit that their heroes have abused women. But domestic violence is an epidemic, and it won’t stop while it’s being airbrushed from fan sites and obituaries. We all have a responsibility in these matters – and it can’t be shrugged off because of someone’s talent.
• Joan Smith is a journalist and chair of the Mayor of London’s violence against women and girls board
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