Beale's BIG texting lie
The Kurtley Beale texting saga took another intriguing turn with the revelation that he lied about having previously sent the offensive message.
Di Patston, the former Australian Rugby Union staff member at the centre of the Wallabies text messaging scandal, broke her silence on Monday and revealed Beale's big lie.
She claimed Beale played her "for a fool" and lied to her face about an offensive and lewd photograph that he sent captioned with her name, according to a report.
Patston, who resigned as the Wallabies' Business Manager on October 10, claims she had hugged the Test utility back and forgave him for inadvertently sending her an image of an obese and naked female crossbow hunter, accompanied with the caption "Di??", on June 9.
Patston told The Australian that, at the time, Beale had assured her that he had not sent the image to anyone else.
But, in a written statement to his Code of Conduct tribunal held last Friday, Beale revealed that he had sent the same offensive images to some "Waratahs mates" six days earlier, on June 3, the newspaper reported.
Beale reportedly had been intending to send the message to another Wallaby teammate from Queensland on June 9 when he accidentally got the number wrong and sent it to Patston instead.
"I did not tell Di any details, however, for fear of hurting her or inflaming the situation," Beale wrote in his statement, according to The Australian.
"I would rather she did not know about it."
Beale was fined AU$45,000 (US$40,000) at the hearing, but walked away with his national contract intact after the panel found he had not sent a second "more offensive" text to Patston as charged.
Patston, who said she felt bullied into not telling anyone about the lewd photos, found out about Beale's "lie" when she was sent a copy of his statement for rebuttal last week.
"It was his decision to lie to me when I gave him the opportunity to tell the truth," she told The Australian.
"Even as I was cuddling him, he said: 'I promise you, Di, I haven't sent this to anyone'.
"When I read his statement, I can tell you I relived it all again. It's like he played me for a fool. If he had said to me it was the second time he did it in the matter of seven days, no way, absolutely no way, would I have just said: 'That's OK'.
"If it was one image or two or 20, what does it matter? They were both of very obese women in a very derogatory way. I am overweight and they were both naked with everything exposed.
"He [Beale] doesn't know my background. I've had an ongoing illness myself and I'm on medication. There's a whole story behind it.
"I actually said to my dad I felt bullied into not telling anyone about the photos because I was embarrassed. I actually sat at a table and cried for an eternity because I didn't know who to tell because I'm so embarrassed by this. Is this what people think of me?," she said.
"People don't see that side of it. They don't see there's a level of feeling degraded, feeling like you're worthless. And he actually admits to sending it twice.
"I'm not good. Life is probably the worst it has ever been. I'm alive but there have been times I haven't wanted to be here."
Sources: Fairfax Media and AAP
