David Penberthy: Hate Ryan Wells all you like, but hate his mates too
THE problem isn’t just the maladjusted jerks who think throwing a punch is the definition of masculinity. It’s also those who see these sorts of things and cheer, writes David Penberthy.
NOT to put too fine a point on it, Ryan Wells is now the best known arsehole in Australia.
And while as a general rule there are few things uglier than a baying mob, this week saw the rise of a form of vigilantism which even the most reasonable person would quietly endorse.
It was the online crucifixion of this alleged coward-punch attacker, Ryan Wells, 32, of Frankston South, Victoria, who became a household name for all the wrong reasons after he was caught on CCTV allegedly belting an innocent passer-by, to the clear delight of his equally gutless mates.
For obvious legal reasons I offer no comment on the guilt or innocence of Mr Wells as he has now been charged and the specifics of his case are to be determined by the courts. What I will say is that video showing Mr Wells committing an alleged assault was clear enough to do two things.
It was clear enough to ensure that whatever happens in court, his name is mud for the rest of his life.
And it was clear enough to ensure he should not have been given bail on the basis of what he is alleged to have done.
Living as we do in the digital age, it is unlikely the reputation of Ryan Wells will ever recover from the nationwide shaming he has endured this week.
Athletes as diverse as AFL legend Patrick Dangerfield and boxer and coward-punch campaigner Danny Green were lining up on social media to denounce the man.
It was at the grassroots level, on tens of thousands of private Facebook pages run by average punters, where the condemnation was at its most intense.
“Wellscrete: Concrete, Excavations and Coward Punching”, read a powerful graphic shared repeatedly across the internet this week. It featured the still image of the alleged assault identifying not just Ryan Wells but his brother Joel, a still photo of the branded car they use for their concreting business, as well as Ryan Wells’ private mobile number — every aspect of his private life and work life there for the whole world to see.
Sucked in for that.
Legal purists might argue that this social media shaming is the modern-day digital equivalent of putting suspected criminals in the stocks in the town square.
Well, yeah. It is. But at the risk of sounding like a redneck, I’m not uncomfortable with that. Mr Wells made his bed. He is now lying in it.
The legal purists are also the only people who have no problem with the fact Mr Wells was granted bail.
In a classic bit of deflecting, I saw the former chief magistrate of Victoria arguing the prisons were now full of people on remand, and the cost of housing prisoners was a high one for the taxpayers.
Setting aside the fact this is one of the few bills taxpayers wouldn’t mind paying, there should be a commonsense argument that anyone accused of serious crimes of violence — especially unprovoked and random violence — should be automatically denied bail.
And if common sense isn’t enough, state laws should be universally altered to remove any doubt.
In a human behaviour sense, one of the more confounding and depressing aspects of the Ryan Wells case is not just his alleged actions but those of his brother and his friend who witnessed the attack.
There were several fruitless and ideologically-driven columns written last month by progressive and conservative commentators in light of the shocking murder of Eurydice Dixon.
Pieces by hard-line feminists offered sweeping generalisations about the apparently misogynist behaviour of all men — and were met in kind with insecure and defensive commentary (not just by blokes, strangely) claiming that male violence was somehow overstated, if not a baseless feminist fiction.
I am not sure at what point all this became a competition. The victims should be the focus regardless of their gender.
The truth is that Australia — like most countries — has a very real problem with male violence.
Perpetrators of violence are almost always men. In the domestic setting, their victims are almost always female. In the public setting, their victims are usually male.
The statistical reality is that when it comes to violence in this country you are much more likely to wind up dead or injured if you’re a bloke.
Roughly two-thirds of homicide victims in this country each year are men, and are usually killed by being punched to death or stabbed.
The Ryan Wells case shows us it’s not just the blokes throwing the punches who are the problem, but the pathetic enablers who get their rocks off on seeing another man engage in violence.
How does your brain end up wired that way? I have only ever seen one proper fight in my life. It involved someone who was not a friend, but who I knew well. He had taken LSD that night, picked an argument with a bloke, and ended up smashing his face repeatedly into an ATM.
I was screaming at him to stop. He eventually did, his victim running away wailing, blood pissing from his shattered face. The whole thing was so distressing I couldn’t stop crying. I was 19 at the time and to this day the memory makes me feel physically sick.
It’s not just a question of whether you’re a maladjusted jerk who thinks throwing a punch is the definition of masculinity. Who sees these sorts of things and laughs and cheers? The answer to these questions are contained in a few seconds of CCTV from a street in Frankston.
Regardless of what the courts end up doing, good on you, Australia, for giving these bastards the shaming they so richly deserve.