Inside the Veitch media circus

Tony Veitch fronts up to the press after his guilty plea. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

There was an unguarded moment from Tony Veitch, shortly after his conviction for assaulting his former partner. Leaving the courtroom where he pleaded guilty, nine months after his public trial began, he gave a court security guard a weak smile and said: "Hopefully I'll never see you again".

There was relief and exhaustion in his voice. Veitch looked wrung out, yet transformed as he descended the Auckland District Court escalator to speak to the waiting media outside.

There he was strident and aggressive, rather than the expected humbled and contrite. Observers agree this was the point that Veitch lost a lot of the public sympathy that he had painstakingly won.

Wife Zoe had slipped into the background. Hovering at Veitch's shoulder were Stuart
Grieve QC, the defence barrister, and Glenda Hughes, the "media minder". Veitch later told one journalist, during the round of newspaper, radio and television interviews, that Hughes had been hired to "control the media".

There was no controlling this event on the courthouse steps. Veitch read from a statement he said he had written, spoke of the "hideous" time he and his family had endured, and his "misguided belief that Kristin and I actually parted on good terms".

"Because of severe legal constraints and the agreement I signed, I've been unable to say anything to anybody."

The victim, Kristin
Dunne-Powell, also spoke to media, selecting newspapers and Campbell Live. In one interview she said she had "managed to go nine months without making a comment".

Both blamed media pressure. Dunne-Powell singled out the three Sunday papers, while Veitch complained "much has been written and said over the past nine months that defies belief".

Where did it come from? If no one spoke, how then was so much written about the Tony Veitch Story?

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It was a media story from the beginning. The story was broken by Wellington's Dominion Post in a front-page scoop that became one of the enduring mysteries of the saga. The newspaper quoted "a source who asked not to be named", leading to speculation about who revealed the $150,000 confi dentiality deal Veitch and Dunne-Powell had signed seven months earlier.

Three days after it broke, according to an interview Veitch gave, he hired Hughes, a former police sergeant who has become a public relations expert, often representing those facing the harsh end of public opinion.

Dunne-Powell, likewise, found representation quickly. Her employer at wireless internet provider Woosh already used Star PR, and extended its duties to handling calls on the assault claims.