Editorial: Come clean on Brooke affair

Robin Brooke publicly apologised in February for an incident in Fiji on New Year's Eve. Photo / Paul Estcourt

In the absence of any public denial by former All Black Robin Brooke that he had sex with a near-comatose teenager 12 years ago, it seems reasonable to conclude that the report is substantially reliable.

Brooke has declined repeated requests for comment and no lawyer has sought to stop reporting or discussion of the alleged incident. At least two people in a position to have known the facts - the then All Black coach, John Hart, and manager, Mike Banks - have given interviews that do not dispute the outline of events.

Just when and how - and even whether - Brooke will account for his actions has yet to be seen.

It appears that he thought he had done so long since, by virtue of paying the young woman $1500 and enduring an unspecified penalty - it may have been no more than a stern talking-to; we do not know - imposed by his employer, the New Zealand Rugby Union.

At the end of the week in which the story broke, that is what has become the nub of the matter: the specifics of this sordid and disgraceful incident are, ultimately, of less importance than the consequences - the way it was handled. And what little we know so far does the union - and by extension the game - no credit.

Mark Sainsbury, the host of TVNZ's Close Up programme, put his finger on it when he remarked to Hart on Thursday that the NZRU was "a bit like the Catholic Church" when it came to recalling what went on.

It is not simply frustrating but reprehensible that the top brass of the day are now entirely - not to say conveniently - vague about the specifics of what occurred.

John Hart says that he was responsible for on-field discipline and matters that occurred off the field were in Banks' bailiwick, which is plausible enough. But Banks sat on the board. It is inconceivable that the matter was not discussed at length at board level.

Presumably it was not every day during the period of their stewardship that an envelope arrived containing the socks and the credit card of a big-name All Black, along with a woman's handwritten allegation of inappropriate behaviour.

It defies belief that the details should elude them now. In any case, the records presumably exist to refresh their memories; if they do not, it invites the suspicion that covering the matter up was a major priority at the time.

The latest Brooke incident is far from the only such stain on the name of New Zealand rugby, of course, though it has added zing because of the incident at New Year in Fiji when the former player groped a teenager. He later publicly apologised and paid reparation to her. But his comment that he had never before been involved in similar behaviour prompted friends of the woman involved in the 1998 incident to come forward.

Rob Nichol, the chief executive of the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association makes a fair point in his members' defence when he says that the abuse of alcohol and the (often consequential) shameful sexual behaviour are national problems, not specifically rugby ones. But that is not enough to let the game - much less the NZRU - off the hook.

Hart expressed "disappointment" at the effect of the publicity on Brooke's family and the game, which was tellingly devoid of sympathy for the woman brutalised by a man almost twice her age. We are left to infer that the union - at the time and now - has the same attitude.

Yet it has a duty, as the custodian of the All Black tradition and as the employer of All Blacks, to give an assurance that the culture has changed; that allegations of such conduct will be referred to police; and that those who admit or are convicted of such behaviour will be sacked, whatever the consequences for All Black prospects.

The game has no place for such men and the union should say so.