It’s always entertaining to witness the cogs turn in the mind of a man in need of an excuse.
Luis Suarez, accused of biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini in the 2014 World Cup: “I lost my balance and ended up falling on my opponent.”
An acquaintance of mine with a colourful track record of (mostly harmless) dishonesty, after his friend failed to materialise at the promised hour: “He’s sorry he couldn’t make it, he ran over his own son whilst reversing out of his drive this morning. Terrible.”
Man charged with two counts of attempted rape, seven counts of sexual assault and four counts of common assault, all allegedly committed between the lifeguards’ flags at Surfers Paradise beach, Australia: “Well it was rather rough out there today.”
Innocent until proven guilty, of course, but the evidence seems to be stacked up against the accused. “An 18-year-old Victorian man,” writes ABC, “has blamed rough surf and strong winds for a series of alleged assaults against girls and women on the Gold Coast.” Presumably he hailed from the state, not the era, of Victoria, and had journeyed to Queensland by a conventional mode of transport and not time travel, although this is not stated explicitly. Once there he went to the beach, and unaccustomed to the greater turbulence of Australia’s eastern shores, or perhaps simply to twenty first century sexual mores, made forceful advances on several girls “through their bikini bottoms”.
The story continues:
“His lawyer told the court that winds and big waves pushed her client into the women, who were swimming between the flags in separate groups.
But Magistrate John Costanzo said the man’s explanation that heavy surf and wind conditions caused the alleged assaults seemed implausible.
‘The Crown will argue that’s the most unfortunate conspiracy of circumstances in history,’ he said.
Mr Costanzo denied the man’s bail application because he was an unacceptable risk of re-offending.
‘My view of the facts in this case is the Crown case appears to be quite strong in the allegation of eight separate, brazen and repeated sexual assaults and attempted rape,’ he said.
[. . .] Outside court, detective Acting Inspector Greg Aubort said the alleged victims were asked if the surf conditions were rough and if the alleged assaults were accidental.
‘We have individual reports very firm in saying these were deliberate acts,’ Mr Aubort said.
‘If you look at the surf from yesterday, it was two to three feet, it was nothing startling in that sense.'”
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