Shane, I don’t know what she thinks about Montagna, but I agree the system that protects the perpetrators of sexual assault is odious.
But in this instance the factual question is what the drunk 21 year old Montagna heard himself and could remember 10 years later. He said he didn’t hear anything untoward. The victim’s friend (who was sober) said she did and felt uncomfortable and left the room. Both those things could have been true. Montagna was either a passive participant in sexual misconduct or someone who was unaware of it going on. You can form your own views about which one of those is more likely, but you can’t know which is true. Unlike Milne, he was never charged with, or found guilty of anything. I’ve never met him, or heard his testimony (or even heard him speak about it), so I feel uncomfortable ruling a line through him as a person; albeit not as uncomfortable as tacitly supporting someone who may have been involved in sexual misconduct. It’s messy.
But at least some of the people responsible for hiring him do know him as a person, so I understand why they might be more inclined to consider him either innocent or someone who has learned from his mistakes. That’s a very human thing.
So although from where I sit I consider it is a bad appointment by Freo, and certainly not one I would have made personally, I guess I lack the moral certainly of others. I can only think back to how I felt when we recruited Shane Yarran. I thought it was great we were giving him a second chance but if memory serves the people he burgled had a different view. I think it would have been fair for them to be upset about that, but also fair for us to have drafted him.
