Kerre Woodham: Scrutiny of famous people is fair

On the face of it, Kate Moss and Sione Lauaki don't have a lot in common. But both of them shared the same unwelcome spotlight last week as they fronted up to the police for their crimes and misdemeanours.

Moss was interviewed by British police for allegedly possessing and using cocaine.

Don't you love the straitjacket of courtroom language? There are the photos plastered all over the News of the World, showing Moss shovelling cocaine up her nose like she's shoring up a stop bank, and it's alleged? Surely she couldn't argue mistaken identity - there's only one person who looks like Kate Moss and that's Kate Moss. That's why her face has earned her a fortune - her features are unique.

Anyway, Moss appears to have got away with a caution and sectors of the British public are shrieking. Onerule for the beautiful, the rich and the famous and one for the plebs.

And that's pretty much the cry in New Zealand too, when Sione Lauaki walked away from court, after applying for diversion arising from an assault charge involving a Hamilton security consultant.

Whenever diversion is granted to first offenders, details of the case are suppressed.

A judicial veil descends, and so no one will ever know what happened that night, except the principals involved.

What the public does know though is that Lauaki got in a stoush, got charged and now may be discharged without conviction.

Naturally, there have been people saying that he only walked because he's anAll Black.

We can probably all think of a number of cases where high profile rugby players have appeared to get away with crimes for which lesser mortals would have been punished.

But surely it would be just as wrong to punish these men more harshly simply because they're rugby players.

There's a case to argue that Marc Ellis might not have got a conviction for possessing ecstasy last year were he not so well-known.

If you look at last year's police statistics, more than 39,000 people were apprehended for violent offences. Of those, about 8200 were cautioned and 400 qualified for diversion.

Their offending was at the lower end of the scale, they were first-time offenders and they were unlikely to offend again, in the judgement of the police. Lauaki ticked all of the boxes, so surely he should be given the same chance as anybody else.

Mind you, he might want to look at the companyhe keeps.

The arrogant and aggressive attitude that his minder had towards the waiting media is not terribly helpful nor is the paranoid and defensive stance taken by some of the NZRU executive, Jock Hobbs excepted, towards the media and public.

Sure, rugby players should be given a fair go but that doesn't mean they are immune from scrutiny.

And shouldn't the Chiefs have a few questions asked of their franchise culture?

In the last four years, they've had one player acquitted of assault on a woman despite the fact that the judge said there was every possibility the incident took place; another player was convicted, fined and sentenced to community service for assault and obstructing police; a stoush erupted after an end-of-year dinner for players; and now the Lauaki incident.

Maybe that's par for the course when you're an employer of physicalyoung men.

Maybe there's been provocation when it comes to the incidents mentioned. I don't know.

What I do know is asking any question surrounding the behaviour of rugby players and the culture of the profession brings down the wrath of some of the more sensitive executives.

If the players, and indeed the executives, don't like the fact that there's a downside to all the perks involved in professional rugby, then maybe they should get a job data processing in a backroom somewhere.

Then they'd be left alone.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY