George Hook has been suspended from his role at Newstalk over comments he made about a UK rape case last Friday.
The station confirmed the news in a tweet on Friday morning.
Newstalk can confirm that George Hook has been suspended from his duties at the station. The process re: his comments last week is ongoing.
— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) September 15, 2017
The news of Hook’s suspension will come as no surprise to those who closely followed the fallout from the former rugby pundit’s show last week.
In his broadcast on Friday 8 September, Hook was discussing the case of a teenager who reportedly had sex with a member of the British Olympic swimming team, who then allegedly passed her on to a friend of his.
The teenager claims to have met Ieuan Lloyd in a nightclub before they returned to his room. They are reported to have had sex before the girl alleges she was raped by Lloyd’s fellow swimmer, Otto Putland. Putland denies this and the case is ongoing.
Hook outlined the facts of the story as they currently stand.
“When you look deeper into the story, you have to ask certain questions,” stated Hook
“Why does a girl who just meets a fella in a bar go back to a hotel room? She’s only just barely met him, she has no idea of his health conditions, she has no idea who he is, she has no idea of what dangers he might pose, but modern day social activity means that she goes back with him, then is SURPRISED when someone comes into the room and rapes her.
“Should she be raped? Of course she shouldn’t. Isn’t she entitled to say no? Of course she is. Is the guy who came in a scumbag? Certainly. Should he go to jail? Of course. All those things.”
In attributing blame to the person who had reportedly been sexually assaulted, Hook set in motion a sequence of events that would see a number of his colleagues ask that he be taken off air, protests outside the Newstalk office and the refusal of Dil Wickremasinghe to present her Global Village show this weekend.
“But is there no blame now to the person who puts themselves in danger?” asked Hook.
“You then, of course, read that she passed out in the toilet and when she woke up the guy was trying to rape her. There is personal responsibility, because it’s your daughter and it’s my daughter and what determines the daughter that goes out, gets drunk, passes out and is with strangers in a room and the daughter that goes out and stays half-way sober and comes home? I don’t know. I wish I knew.”
The Dalata Hotel group also pulled sponsorship from High Noon, while Tesco also decided not to proceed with their commercial backing of Hook’s show.
On Her earlier this week, Taryn de Vere spoke powerfully about her own experiences of rape – and the impact Hook’s comments have on rape culture.
She later detailed the responses to her piece – stating that many people still attributed some blame to her.
