This newspaper has been critical in the past of judicial decisions, but there is always the rider that they know more about the offending, and the defendant's response, than those who rely on what is reported by the media. But even if this appears to be an extreme example of giving unwarranted weight to the potential effects of a conviction on a young person's career, it is far from unique.
As usual, however, a few facts wouldn't go amiss.
At the time of these assaults Filipo was a 17-year-old schoolboy. He was not contracted to the Wellington Rugby Union or anyone else.
He was not a professional rugby player, and his actions cannot be judged as though he were. If he had been about to embark upon studies to become a dentist, would dentistry have been tarnished as some people believe rugby has been?
The Wellington union stands accused of condoning this sort of behaviour, not least for offering the court a reference in support of Filipo at sentencing, and declaring that it did not intend to write him off.
His contract was subsequently torn up, although that seems to have been the result of an approach by the boy himself and the players' union.
Perhaps Wellington should have dropped him instantly, although that would have attracted criticism from those who believe that everyone, especially the young, deserves a second chance.
Witness the support now being given to extending the Youth Court's jurisdiction to 17-year-olds. Some of those who will benefit from that, if it happens, will make Filipo look like a choir boy.
Is the fact that the union offered a reference unusual? No it isn't. Happens all the time, not always to great effect in terms of reducing the penalty but pretty much standard employer practice all the same.
More importantly, how much did the union know before it offered that reference?
The answer there is probably not much. Many of those who are baying for rugby's blood, including, less excusably, 'expert' commentators, have likely never sat in court when a young man appears before a judge, genuinely or doing his best to look remorseful.
Once upon a time summaries of facts were read out in open court, but no longer. It's all about saving court time, but means that apart from the defendant, the judge and the lawyer, few have any idea about what actually happened.
Some years ago Judge Thomas Everitt directed that the summary of facts be given to a young defendant's uncle, who was sitting in the Kaitaia District Court's public gallery. The facts, he said, would open the uncle's eyes.
Until that point he had clearly been given a very sanitised version of the facts by his nephew.
It's dollars to doughnuts that when the Wellington Rugby Union went into bat for Filipo, if that is what it did - the writer hasn't seen its reference, and the critics won't have either - it did not appreciate the seriousness of the assaults.
Had it done so it might well have declined to provide a reference, although plenty of people would say that a teenager does not deserve to lose a potential career whatever the circumstances.
Wellington exacerbated its culpability, in the eyes of some, when it issued a statement after sentencing saying it did not condone violence but was continuing to support the teenager.
Even after walking away from its contract, some critics pointed out that this young man would still be free to play rugby at some point in the future. Maybe he should just have been burned at the stake and been done with it.
The reaction to Strippergate was not dissimilar, although critics, including some media, remained undeterred even after one or two salient facts finally began to appear.
Such as that it was people who had no connection with the Chiefs who behaved badly, one of them a 70-year-old bus driver.
The response to the new information from some was simply to change the subject, without acknowledging that they might have jumped the gun, while others continued hoeing into rugby, the greater offence apparently being the union's response to the allegations rather than what actually happened.
Last week we learned that a university researcher had established that rugby coaches were more intent on developing players' skills than producing fine, upstanding young men. University researchers often occupy a parallel universe, but this takes the biscuit.
Who sets out to play rugby, or any sport for that matter, with the aim of becoming a well-rounded person as opposed to the best player they can be?
Research efforts might better have gone into investigating what universities are doing to ensure that their students become well-rounded, decent people as opposed to louts who drink to excess and set fire to furniture in public places.
We all accept that oafish students will grow into doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers and school teachers.
The actions of the most loutish student could hardly be compared with the thug that Losi Filipo was on the night that he attacked four people, but the principle is valid.
We expect that students will get past the behaviour that older folk find offensive. Might not the same latitude be given to Losi Filipo?
For the record, the writer believes that Filipo should have been convicted and jailed, if only as an example to others. If that ended any hope of his playing professional rugby, so be it.
Rich kid Nikolas Delegat, whose assault on a police officer continued after he had beaten her into unconsciousness, should have been jailed too. He was convicted, but only after touring courtrooms around the country in a bid to wriggle free, and to gain name suppression.
Courts will always be subject to public scrutiny, and so they should be, albeit acknowledging that critics don't always have the full picture. But this new phenomenon of blaming people who are not prepared to criticise, generally without anything remotely approaching 'the facts,' is unhelpful.
It is a new form of political correctness, a symptom of gross intolerance that at its worst might well lead to future injustice.
