Sorry does not excuse degrading behaviour

Dominic Harvey's apology was made by tapping on a phone, not facing the person, their family, their friends. Photo / File

I now know who Dominic Harvey is, which I guess was his goal: to become better known. He's a DJ on The Edge. He needs to be listened to, to set tongues wagging and be reported.

I get that. I'm the guy who wore a canary yellow jacket for an entire election campaign. But in the modern age, celebrity status is achieved not through clever stunts, intelligence and wit, or by being good at your job. It's done by tapping out abuse and offence to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. It's instant. It's thoughtless. It's often disgusting.

There is a rush to the bottom and Harvey is the guy scraping the barrel at the moment.

Harvey went out of his way to capture an image of Dancing with the Stars' contestant Chrystal Chenery's crotch and posted it with sexual and degrading comment. He thought it was funny. He caused offence. It got him reported. Harvey apologised to Chrystal. On Facebook. And deleted her photo.

The apology was made by tapping on a phone, not facing the person, their family, their friends. But human social interaction doesn't work like Twitter. Apologies over the internet don't gratify or give satisfaction.

Harvey's Twitter feed shows 42,000 followers and 20,000 tweets. He has tweeted the equivalent of War and Peace.

Harvey has banned himself from all social media saying he's not responsible enough to be Tweeting.

I had assumed Harvey was a precocious adolescent puffed with celebrity self-importance. Turns out he's middle-aged.

The difference between Harvey and the shopping mall pervert photographing up girls' skirts is, to my mind, the pervert knows what he is doing is wrong. He keeps his photos to himself. He doesn't post them online with degrading comment.

Amazingly, Harvey has a wife. She's called Jay-Jay. She says she hopes "Chrystal can find peace". I am sure she will. As far away from Harvey as she can possibly get.