Arguably the most incendiary remark of the sentencing was Sheriff Peter Paterson saying Hogg may be excused from attending a review hearing in March “because there is no point in interrupting his career”.
It is yet another example of someone’s sporting talent being valued higher than women’s safety. As Jamie Klingler, co-founder of the Reclaim These Streets, a social-justice movement, told Telegraph Sport after the Hogg news: “The public’s propensity to forgive a man for abusing his partner as long as he can score a try is as legendary as the sport itself.”
Consider that Hogg has, quite remarkably, experienced a career revival since first being arrested last February. He had retired before the 2023 Rugby World Cup having become only the fourth men’s player to win 100 caps for Scotland, yet Montpellier signed him last summer despite facing that domestic abuse charge.
Admittedly Hogg was not in the Montpellier squad to play the Lions on Saturday, but that could be as much to do with the likelihood he was unable to train fully given his trip to Selkirk for the sentencing, as opposed to the optics of selecting him after the court appearance. After all, the club had no issue picking him to start at first five-eighths last week when he had already pleaded guilty to domestic abuse.
The French club is actually home to three domestic abusers. Last year they re-signed Mohamed Haouas, who was convicted of hitting his wife in public in 2023, while fellow front-rower, Wilfrid Hounkpatin, received a one-year suspended sentence for domestic violence last April.
This “forgive and forget” approach is somewhat familiar in rugby. Fiji-born wing Sevu Reece admitted assaulting his then partner in New Zealand in 2018 but was discharged without conviction, with the judge acknowledging that such a conviction would have seen a contract offer from Irish province Connacht withdrawn.
Connacht pulled the offer regardless, but Reece was subsequently signed by the Crusaders and has gone on to represent the All Blacks more than 30 times. He even featured in an ill-advised International Women’s Day social post in 2022, for which New Zealand Rugby apologised. (We could also dissect what the crass phrasing in the same post of praising the women who “allow” men to play or the fact it failed to mention the multiple World Cup-winning Black Ferns team says about rugby culture in the country.)
Back in 2013 another All Blacks wing, Julian Savea, was charged with assault in relation to a domestic incident – having previously fronted an anti-family-violence campaign. The charge was later withdrawn after he completed a “police diversion scheme” in New Zealand, which aims to prevent reoffending.
It is the same programme that Shannon Frizell undertook in 2021 that saw two charges of assault against a woman and one of common assault dismissed. The back-rower, too, has been able to continue with his All Blacks career and collected a runners-up medal at the 2023 World Cup.
This issue is not solely about domestic abuse, either. In December, three rugby players – Denis Coulson, Rory Grice and Loick Jammes – were sentenced in France to between 12 and 14 years in prison for gang rape, with Chris Farrell and Dylan Hayes also convicted of “failing to assist a person in danger”. The rape happened in 2017 but their rugby careers had continued, with Oyonnax terminating the contracts of Grice and Farrell only last week.
While Ulster and Ireland players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding were cleared of rape in 2018 – and resumed their rugby careers, albeit outside of Ireland – the trial highlighted abhorrent views towards women.
Of course, this is not only a rugby problem. There are worrying attitudes around violence against women across sport, with athletic ability often seemingly able to absolve such sins.
Take the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight (if we can call it that such was the quality) in Texas last year. It put Tyson on the radar of Gen Z, the same generation that Andrew Tate has targeted with his misogynistic rhetoric. Yet the fact that the former heavyweight champion is a convicted rapist seems to have been whitewashed from his history. Teenagers are hailing Tyson as the greatest of all time despite not even being alive when he was at his best as a boxer, while his controversial treatment of women is simply glossed over.
Rewind to the Olympics and you find Steven van de Velde, who was sentenced to four years for raping a 12-year-old girl but represented the Netherlands in volleyball at the Games in Paris.
The past week also brought the news that the police have handed a file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service about a Premier League player accused of rape. Charges could be filed in a matter of weeks but the incidents date back to 2021.
Player X has been able to keep playing since the news broke in 2022, but what of the women who work at his club? Yes, the legal principle is innocent until proven guilty, but the wider impact on employees and their right to feel safe in the workplace must also be considered. Would you want to bump into someone accused of rape in the corridor?
For perpetrators, alleged or convicted, to continue to be venerated for their feats in sporting arenas – and be well compensated for doing so – while victims continue to live with the trauma they inflicted is a dangerous message for sport to send.
Sportspeople often complain of being held to too high a standard but we have a right to expect more from anyone in a position of influence. Besides, respecting women should be a given for everyone – not that it is.
We like to think we are living in a more progressive society when it comes to equality but that is often not the case. And worryingly, many men subscribe to Tate-like diatribe. Perhaps we should not be surprised by such attitudes when an accused sexual predator has been elected to the highest office in the United States. But we can be disappointed. And we must demand better, both from sport and wider society.
