Editorial: All Black did not deserve this ordeal

When first pulled aside Mils Muliaina thought it was for a routine drugs test. Instead he was arrested, charged and spent the night in custody. Photo / Michael Craig

Editorial

Former All Black Mils Muliaina appears to have had raw treatment from Welsh police. For six months he waited to answer a charge of sexual assault in a Cardiff night club after a rugby match. The circumstances of his arrest were bizarre.

The incident in which a young woman's bottom was touched in the crowded night club allegedly happened on March 7, but police waited until the following month when his Irish club, Connacht, came to play Gloucester, just across the border from Wales.

They swooped on him after the match, taking him away in his tracksuit under the glare of the television cameras that had covered the match.

When first pulled aside he thought it was for a routine drugs test. Instead he was arrested, charged and spent the night in custody.

It seemed odd at the time and it seems even more odd now. For when the case was called in the Cardiff Crown Court this week, he pleaded not guilty and the prosecution called no evidence.

The charge was dropped and outside the court, Muliaina faced the media looking dazed and hurt.

His lawyer called the decision to prosecute him "outrageous". It is easy to agree.

Wales is a rugby-conscious place. A recent All Black will command attention when he plays for a visiting team. But Wales is not the United States.

British justice does not condone defendants being exposed to publicity like this before they can answer a charge.

Weeks elapsed in this case between the complaint and the arrest, weeks in which the police could surely have checked the strength of their evidence.

They have put Muliaina through another six months of anxiety, for what purpose? New Zealand courts are often accused of going too far to protect All Blacks or former All Blacks in trouble.

Name suppression is given to them too easily. But this case illustrates they may suffer unduly in other rugby playing places.

It needs to be acknowledged that allegations of sexual offences are often hard to prove. Usually there are no witnesses to corroborate a complaint. But this problem is so obvious that some people will always suspect it is the reason a charge has been dropped.

For that reason a false or uncertain complaint can cause a lasting injustice.

Every person has the right to complain if their are indecently touched, on a crowded dance floor or anywhere else - and the police are criticised for not acting on complaints often enough. In this case they did not just act, they made it a public drama.

If this is the downside of the All Blacks' international prominence, it is unfair.