Club investigates after ‘funny’ chat on FaceTime turned explicit
THESE are the emails from the young woman at the centre of the Rabbitohs naked image scandal. Shane Richardson, the club’s general manager of football, remained tight-lipped on the issue as he left Redfern Oval this morning.
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THE young woman at the centre of the South Sydney Rabbitohs naked images scandal emailed the club to say she felt “violated and disgusted”.
But the 23-year-old contacted The Daily Telegraph after she said repeated follow-up emails to the club demanding action had gone unanswered.
The emails are revealed below as Rabbitohs chief executive Blake Solly said now it had been proven the woman had repeatedly “tried to reach out” they would contact her today.
READ THE EMAILS SENT TO THE RABBITOHS BY THE WOMAN
She writes in the first email: “It started off as a funny FaceTime with the group of boys and because I am a huge NRL fan I was on quite a high. However after the 5th 6th and 7th call coming from one of the players by himself in his room, I began to feel violated and disgusted as a result of it.”
And four days later: “I am still feeling very violated by the experience and as I think about it more and speak to my friends and family for their opinion, they are making me realise how degrading it is to women and how these men think they can get away with absolutely anything just because of their social status. It is actually disgusting and I am more annoyed by the situation now than I was before.”
Souths Player Wellbeing Manager Brock Safer responded the following day: “Our Club Code of Conduct is one of the strongest in the game and we put significant effort and resources into helping develop good people as well as good athletes. At this stage it’s difficult from your email to assess the nature of the incident described however we certainly take your email seriously and will work to understand what has occurred.”
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Today, the Rabbitohs and the NRL’s Integrity Unit are investigating claims that a Facebook video chat with several high-profile players turned lewd without the woman’s consent — with two stars exposing their private parts.
A club spokesman yesterday confirmed the 23-year-old sent an email the day after the May 26 incident, revealing how a “funny” FaceTime chat “with the group of boys” turned explicit and left her “violated and disgusted”.
This morning, Rabbitohs head coach Anthony Seibold said he doesn’t know any details about allegations of players sending naked images to a woman, and wanted to focus on the game ahead.
“It’s a little bit of chaos thrown in front of us, certainly not ideal,” he told media at Redfern Oval on Friday morning.
“The NRL integrity unit, from my understanding, have known about this for a couple of days, I don’t know how long they’ve known about it for, what the communications channels were and why it is the focus on the day before a semi final.
“At the moment they’re accusations, I have not seen any photos myself personally, I have heard the accusations, I am not willing to make any comment until the investigation is completed.”
He didn’t know details of the independent investigators called in to look at an email trail and said he didn’t know when the investigation would be complete.
The Rabbitoh’s General Manager of Football Shane Richardson remained tight lipped on the situation as he left Redfern Oval this morning.
When asked if the club knew about the incident in May, he said “no”.
The players had been celebrating the team’s win in Auckland against the Warriors. In screenshots taken by the girl and seen by The Daily Telegraph, one of the players pulls his pants down to show off his genitals while in another a player bares his backside to the woman.
The woman made contact with one of the players through Instagram.
She says phone records show one player repeatedly called her, even after she had made it clear she wanted to be left alone.
Several of the club’s biggest names are involved in the videochat. The Daily Telegraph has chosen not to name the players or publish the screenshots.
The woman contacted The Daily Telegraph after she said repeated follow-up emails to the club demanding action had gone unanswered.
After questions from The Daily Telegraph, a Rabbitohs spokesman confirmed that the woman’s initial email was received by the club’s football operations manager Brock Schafer on June 1.
In that email, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Mr Schafer assures the woman the matter was being taken “seriously” and the club “will work to understand what has occurred”. However subsequent emails from the woman on June 5 and August 31 were never responded to.
“I feel quite disappointed that my email has not been responded too (sic) since a few months ago,” she wrote in August.
“I find it disgusting how these boys think they can get away with this crap.”
A spokesman said the club had late yesterday hired an “independent contractor” to trawl through emails to verify if the woman had sent follow-up emails. He said this contractor could “confirm” that these emails were not answered because they “were tagged as spam”.
“As per the system junk email policy these emails were subsequently routed to a junk mail folder,” he said.
The club would not answer detailed questions from The Daily Telegraph about the claims of player misbehaviour.
South Sydney Rabbitohs chief executive Blake Solly last night said that now it had been proven that the woman had repeatedly “tried to reach out” they would make contact with her today.
“We are proud of our position on the Code of Conduct and if someone has breached that we want to investigate it,” he said. “Now we have more information we can speak to the players in the morning (today).”