"Restorative justice"

[schrodingers cat]

I did. I found it in your hurtful and belittling words

Bro, fuck off and find something constructive to do. Like pulling the wings off flys or whatever.

Boring troll is boring

[Usarka]

I reckon any fucker commiting a crime has shown they are capable. Who knows how many other crimes they've committed already, or how many more they are going to commit.

Hang the fuckers at the first sign of any offence.

[Oakie]

Damn. I wish I'd checked this thread out earlier.
It's dangerous taking the complainant's blog as the be all and end all of the facts of the case.
anyhoo...
from Wiki: Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service". Restorative justice involves both victim and offender and focuses on their personal needs. In addition, it provides help for the offender in order to avoid future offences.

Question: Can it be called 'Restorative Justice' if the victim refuses to participate?

Observations:
> Perhaps if the blogger had agreed to be involved in the process instead of refusing he may have received more satisfaction. He did not give himself the opportunity to say "well this has cost me $500 so that's what I'd like in addition to his apology and his left testicle in a jar"
> The guy found the phone in a toilet block, presumably dropped on the floor or left elsewhere. No way was it right for him to keep it but I don't know if its 'theft' in the way that the victim inferred it. It may possibly be it was this subtle diofference that saved the guy's job. (And no, don't compare it to someone 'finding a bike in a carpark' and taking it.)
> Possibly the uni being a bunch of tree-hugging, jandal-wearing, youghurt slurping left-wing hippies at heart do 'restorative justice' as a first step in anything and just couldn't get past that on this occasion. I also think that the bloggers attitude (and general demeanour) may have pissed them off sufficiently for them to say "well phuck ewe". In any case, it would be really interesting to see their policy on how restorative justice is administered.

If it had happened in my workplace my first instinct was that 'yeah, lets sack his arse' but then I remember the advice my boss gave me "Always make sure you have all the facts before proceding". In my workplace I'd probably still sack his arse as my guys work in small teams. Perhaps at the Uni with minimal chance of the victim and offender running into each other that made a small difference?

The cleaner is a ladies front-bum for keeping the phone and the victim is a twat for ultimately making the damage to himself a lot worse than the loss of a phone (which presumably he'd already replaced under insurance).

OK guys ... have at me ... but remember, I'm really only playing Devil's Advocate ... just posing questions to consider.

[Virago]

...The guy found the phone in a toilet block, presumably dropped on the floor or left elsewhere. No way was it right for him to keep it but I don't know if its 'theft' in the way that the victim inferred it. It may possibly be it was this subtle diofference that saved the guy's job. (And no, don't compare it to someone 'finding a bike in a carpark' and taking it.)...

This, sadly, is a regretably common attitude, where picking up a dropped item becomes a "score". Why is it different to "finding" a motorcycle in a carpark? It is not your property, what gives you the right to take it and keep it, and claim that it's not theft?

The key issue here (as mentioned above) is that the victim approached the caretaker, and asked if a phone had been found - the caretaker said no, despite having it. At that point, it was theft - pure and simple. Theft by someone actually employed to protect the victim, and carried out during the course of his duties.

[PrincessBandit]

The key issue here (as mentioned above) is that the victim approached the caretaker, and asked if a phone had been found - the caretaker said no, despite having it. At that point, it was theft - pure and simple. Theft by someone actually employed to protect the victim, and carried out during the course of his duties.

An open and shut case my dear Watson

[SMOKEU]

As much as I hate to say it, we can learn from the Arabs with their Sharia law for this sort of thing.

[cskadizzy]

Sup guys. I just checked the blog stats this weekend and found this thread. That's an interesting discussion. Some of you raise some good points. I'd hope they could be answered by reading the emails from the staff at Vic in the blog - they were pretty keen to not do anything beyond the initial offer of restorative justice - but it's a lot of information, and if you read it piecemeal then bits might get left out.

I should address them, right? Even if I do little else. This is really stressful. I disengage from it a lot. I'd rather be talking to the media about my research.

First, that it may have been a little precious to withdraw from the PhD. I agree completely that it could seem this way. And in fact I was quite concerned that the impression would be that I was throwing my toys out of the pram, cutting my nose off to spite my face, etc. Considering I know what the academic community in NZ is like, that was first in my mind: that making a fuss and moving somewhere else would screw my career entirely. So this wasn't taken rashly, or lightly. Much discussion went into it. In fact, the decision was taken after discussion with my partner and my PhD supervisor. It was the third time in a month it had been under consideration, but the response from senior faculty sealed it.

I really felt like I had no choice: I've taken and left a lot of things in my life, but I've never been told to lump it or leave it in this way. So the ultimate end of this is that a caretaker has the full support of the university, and I can go get fucked. I'm a principled person. I can't help it. I'm from Liverpool originally, and I'm from working stock. I'm weirdly proud of it. At some times, pride in your principles is all you've got to separate you from the scum out there. So I'm not going to stand by and carry on working at an institution that's treated me like shit.

If they can't get this right, then how are they going to get the bigger things right?

Doing a PhD is a really lonely experience. No one in my school does what I do. Not even my supervisor speaks the in the same terms as me. You're basically on your own with your work for three years. You get next to nothing to live on, but you have to put in well over 50 hours of work a week. You don't have classes. You teach, but you're not a lecturer. You're stuck between undergrads, honours and master's and the staff. So you don't belong anywhere, and the PhD cohort in my school was small. You need the support of the institution. If you don't have that then you may as well not be there.

Damn. I wish I'd checked this thread out earlier.
It's dangerous taking the complainant's blog as the be all and end all of the facts of the case.

I think you're right. But I feel I should say that aside from the fact that this is a very emotive issue for me, no one at the university has stepped forward to challenge any information on there or any information that's been in the media. They've had plenty of opportunity when the Herald have called them. But they refused to even comment at first. All I've done is repeat what I did, as I stated in my statement to police. I simply added photographs, which the police have. I included the full emails from the Associate Director of Campus Services and the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Research. It's the only place I've had my full say, really, apart from the victim impact statement for the court.

The university are also treating this as an employment issue. They're trivialising the fact that a crime was committed by a member of their staff, on their premises, by doing this. It becomes an employment issue, they don't have to comment, and they can ignore the safety issues and the potential that other things have been taken.

By the way, here are some photos from the phone. You'll see that he's been taking pictures of a brand new cellphone in a box, and pictures of two pairs of basketball shoes, in their boxes. They look like TradeMe pics.

Question: Can it be called 'Restorative Justice' if the victim refuses to participate?

Observations:
> Perhaps if the blogger had agreed to be involved in the process instead of refusing he may have received more satisfaction. He did not give himself the opportunity to say "well this has cost me $500 so that's what I'd like in addition to his apology and his left testicle in a jar"

I pointed out to the university that an apology and a SIM card didn't even begin to cover the losses - I was insured, but the excess was $250. That's half my weekly scholarship money. He deleted all my photos and videos, and all the attachments I had from emails. I also pointed out that restorative justice wasn't their job. If he wanted restorative justice, that's actually a matter for the courts. He has made no such offer through his lawyer or the courts. I could consider it then - it might actually be forced to be proportionate to the damage. Nevertheless, after I refused the offer they made, they didn't listen to the points I'd made: they just told me they were "disappointed" that I didn't want to do it, they were happy with their processes and "All the best for your future." In other words, piss off, it's nothing to do with you. Take it or leave it.

I've spoken to the police, I've spoken to victim support and I've spoken with my partner, a lawyer, and some of her lawyer friends about this: they've all said that restorative justice is victim led. It's never to be taken as a sign of being uncooperative on the part of the victim if he doesn't want to participate.

But I was prepared to cooperate. I didn't demand anything from them. I wouldn't have minded if they'd carried on employing him in a different job - gardening or something, I don't know. But you can't have someone who's taken something and lied about it with keys to the buildings and reasons to be unsupervised around campus. The offer they made was weak, and didn't even compensate me for 10% of my losses, and didn't offer any guarantees of security.

I told them my actual losses. I told them I didn't think the offer was appropriate. I'm not sure if an actual restorative justice session was the best place to negotiate what I thought was proper utu. That would be prior to that point - the point where they didn't listen to how the offer had made me feel or my actual economic losses, but just told me they were disappointed in me and that he should be praised for wanting to take part. They'd already set compensation: a $20 SIM card.

> The guy found the phone in a toilet block, presumably dropped on the floor or left elsewhere. No way was it right for him to keep it but I don't know if its 'theft' in the way that the victim inferred it. It may possibly be it was this subtle diofference that saved the guy's job. (And no, don't compare it to someone 'finding a bike in a carpark' and taking it.)

It was left on top of a toilet roll holder while I took a piss, not on the window ledge as the Herald said. At that time of the morning, there were two people in the building: me and the AV tech. Arana Kenny unlocked that building as regular as clockwork. I would have been in the building really early - on that day, at just after 6am because I dropped my partner at the gym. We saw each other regularly. Mine would have been the only light on in the offices upstairs.

I didn't ask that he be charged with theft. I took the information to the police, and they said that it was theft and they'd find him and charge him. The police are prosecuting, not me. I've had the full support of the police throughout: no one who's had the full appraisal has questioned why I left the PhD. There are factors that aggravate the crime. Yes, it was found. Yes, I was an idiot for leaving it in the bathroom. Yes, I'd done it twice before but retrieved it each time.

But Mr Kenny turned the phone off when he found it; removed and threw away the SIM card; lied to my face about having found it; deleted all my personal photos, videos, music and other files; went out and bought a cable to charge it and connect it to the PC; took it with him around campus; took it on holiday to Fiji; put his own music on there.

And the police have told me that he also tried to tell them he'd found it outside. When they challenged him with my statement, he admitted he found it in the bathroom. He also said that he didn't remember talking to me that morning - but I remember him, and Campus Care sent out the person who unlocked the building to speak to me. Which was Arana Kenny.

> Possibly the uni being a bunch of tree-hugging, jandal-wearing, youghurt slurping left-wing hippies at heart do 'restorative justice' as a first step in anything and just couldn't get past that on this occasion. I also think that the bloggers attitude (and general demeanour) may have pissed them off sufficiently for them to say "well phuck ewe". In any case, it would be really interesting to see their policy on how restorative justice is administered.

That would be fine. I'm a belligerent bastard, I'll be the first to admit it. I'm a belligerent pain in the arse on the blog, and I sound like it - but, and I want to stress this, I didn't say anything to put them off or give them attitude in either the first or the second emails. Disagreeing with something doesn't mean that you have a bad attitude or you're uncooperative. If disagreeing with someone means that in the eyes of the university that you have a bad attitude, then how does anything get sorted out?

They conducted an investigation into the theft they said adhered to principles of natural justice - but they didn't talk to me about what happened at any point, and the police wouldn't have given them any information. Natural justice means that people get a fair hearing and the proceedings are conducted without bias: but if you only talk to the offender, then that's not natural justice.

If it had happened in my workplace my first instinct was that 'yeah, lets sack his arse' but then I remember the advice my boss gave me "Always make sure you have all the facts before proceding". In my workplace I'd probably still sack his arse as my guys work in small teams. Perhaps at the Uni with minimal chance of the victim and offender running into each other that made a small difference?

We're around the same buildings. We see each other all the time. Originally my faculty said, okay, he'll be banned from your offices. But I work all over the university - I use the library, the student union building, I used to teach in the main buildings too. It's not practical. Aside from that, there's no guarantee that given their responses, they'll actually ban him from the buildings.

I have a short temper, too. I'm livid at being treated like this. I won't say what I've felt like doing, but it'd probably get me deported if I lost my carefully cultivated self control.

The cleaner is a ladies front-bum for keeping the phone and the victim is a twat for ultimately making the damage to himself a lot worse than the loss of a phone (which presumably he'd already replaced under insurance).

He's not a cleaner. He's a caretaker who's tasked with building security. He has keys to everywhere. I like the cleaners there. I trust them. I talk to them. They regularly come into our offices and our stuff is safe.

I can understand how you might think that I did this to myself: but again, I'm not going to lump it or leave it. I've had little choice in this, and little say with the university. Why, if I feel marginalised, excluded and effectively punished for catching a member of staff on the rob, should I want to stay at the university? I have no support here. They're banking on me just either staying and putting up with their shit, or leaving and not causing trouble. But they have a duty of care to me and other people. They're failing in that.

What kind of message does this send to other staff? Who else has been caught stealing, and got to keep their job? How many other students have been through the same thing and quietly disappeared or put up with it?

Finally, the cheeky bastard has now applied for a discharge without conviction: he's got away with his job, and now he's trying to get away without a conviction. There will, frankly, be NO consequences for him if he succeeds. I had to change my victim impact statement to reflect how disappointed I am in the fact that he's offered nothing to me of value, hasn't recognised what he's done and now is trying to walk away with his job and his record intact. I'll have borne all the consequences of his actions.

This guy has lied at least twice: to me, and police. His apology, which was forced on me after I said no, is weak, and it's all about him. He actually put a SIM card in the envelope - completely useless to me. And he's got away with his job, and now he's trying to get away with it in court.

I think it's rationally understandable that I'm annoyed. I'm a hothead, but I'm also a reasonable person. But what's happened here, and what he asked for in court isn't reasonable.

[flyingcrocodile46]

This makes for some interesting reading:

http://aranakenny.blogspot.co.nz/

It's worthwhile clicking through some of the links to get all the details, but in a nutshell:

A Victoria University employee, doing caretaking and security work, steals a student's cellphone while working. Seven months later, the victim tracks the phone down using smart-phone technology, and hands the evidence to the police. The culprit is arrested and charged, and he admits the theft.

The crucial thing is how the university have handled it. They've decided that a simple "restorative justice" process is in order, with a letter of apology to be written, and a replacement sim-card provided. The victim rejects this approach, but it was thrust upon him anyway. The letter of apology was basically a self-absorbed "poor me, I got caught".

While I think the victim is being a little precious in withdrawing from the university, he raises some valid issues about the university's approach to the issue. The culprit keeps his job (in a position of trust) on the basis of a pseudo-apology.

I wonder what part of the process was "restorative"?

Fucking soft cock PC bullshit. End of

[flyingcrocodile46]

Sup guys. I just checked the blog stats this weekend and found this thread. That's an interesting discussion. Some of you raise some good points. I'd hope they could be answered by reading the emails from the staff at Vic in the blog - they were pretty keen to not do anything beyond the initial offer of restorative justice - but it's a lot of information, and if you read it piecemeal then bits might get left out.

I should address them, right? Even if I do little else. This is really stressful. I disengage from it a lot. I'd rather be talking to the media about my research.

First, that it may have been a little precious to withdraw from the PhD. I agree completely that it could seem this way. And in fact I was quite concerned that the impression would be that I was throwing my toys out of the pram, cutting my nose off to spite my face, etc. Considering I know what the academic community in NZ is like, that was first in my mind: that making a fuss and moving somewhere else would screw my career entirely. So this wasn't taken rashly, or lightly. Much discussion went into it. In fact, the decision was taken after discussion with my partner and my PhD supervisor. It was the third time in a month it had been under consideration, but the response from senior faculty sealed it.

I really felt like I had no choice: I've taken and left a lot of things in my life, but I've never been told to lump it or leave it in this way. So the ultimate end of this is that a caretaker has the full support of the university, and I can go get fucked. I'm a principled person. I can't help it. I'm from Liverpool originally, and I'm from working stock. I'm weirdly proud of it. At some times, pride in your principles is all you've got to separate you from the scum out there. So I'm not going to stand by and carry on working at an institution that's treated me like shit.

If they can't get this right, then how are they going to get the bigger things right?

Doing a PhD is a really lonely experience. No one in my school does what I do. Not even my supervisor speaks the in the same terms as me. You're basically on your own with your work for three years. You get next to nothing to live on, but you have to put in well over 50 hours of work a week. You don't have classes. You teach, but you're not a lecturer. You're stuck between undergrads, honours and master's and the staff. So you don't belong anywhere, and the PhD cohort in my school was small. You need the support of the institution. If you don't have that then you may as well not be there.




I think you're right. But I feel I should say that aside from the fact that this is a very emotive issue for me, no one at the university has stepped forward to challenge any information on there or any information that's been in the media. They've had plenty of opportunity when the Herald have called them. But they refused to even comment at first. All I've done is repeat what I did, as I stated in my statement to police. I simply added photographs, which the police have. I included the full emails from the Associate Director of Campus Services and the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Research. It's the only place I've had my full say, really, apart from the victim impact statement for the court.

The university are also treating this as an employment issue. They're trivialising the fact that a crime was committed by a member of their staff, on their premises, by doing this. It becomes an employment issue, they don't have to comment, and they can ignore the safety issues and the potential that other things have been taken.

By the way, here are some photos from the phone. You'll see that he's been taking pictures of a brand new cellphone in a box, and pictures of two pairs of basketball shoes, in their boxes. They look like TradeMe pics.



I pointed out to the university that an apology and a SIM card didn't even begin to cover the losses - I was insured, but the excess was $250. That's half my weekly scholarship money. He deleted all my photos and videos, and all the attachments I had from emails. I also pointed out that restorative justice wasn't their job. If he wanted restorative justice, that's actually a matter for the courts. He has made no such offer through his lawyer or the courts. I could consider it then - it might actually be forced to be proportionate to the damage. Nevertheless, after I refused the offer they made, they didn't listen to the points I'd made: they just told me they were "disappointed" that I didn't want to do it, they were happy with their processes and "All the best for your future." In other words, piss off, it's nothing to do with you. Take it or leave it.

I've spoken to the police, I've spoken to victim support and I've spoken with my partner, a lawyer, and some of her lawyer friends about this: they've all said that restorative justice is victim led. It's never to be taken as a sign of being uncooperative on the part of the victim if he doesn't want to participate.

But I was prepared to cooperate. I didn't demand anything from them. I wouldn't have minded if they'd carried on employing him in a different job - gardening or something, I don't know. But you can't have someone who's taken something and lied about it with keys to the buildings and reasons to be unsupervised around campus. The offer they made was weak, and didn't even compensate me for 10% of my losses, and didn't offer any guarantees of security.

I told them my actual losses. I told them I didn't think the offer was appropriate. I'm not sure if an actual restorative justice session was the best place to negotiate what I thought was proper utu. That would be prior to that point - the point where they didn't listen to how the offer had made me feel or my actual economic losses, but just told me they were disappointed in me and that he should be praised for wanting to take part. They'd already set compensation: a $20 SIM card.



It was left on top of a toilet roll holder while I took a piss, not on the window ledge as the Herald said. At that time of the morning, there were two people in the building: me and the AV tech. Arana Kenny unlocked that building as regular as clockwork. I would have been in the building really early - on that day, at just after 6am because I dropped my partner at the gym. We saw each other regularly. Mine would have been the only light on in the offices upstairs.

I didn't ask that he be charged with theft. I took the information to the police, and they said that it was theft and they'd find him and charge him. The police are prosecuting, not me. I've had the full support of the police throughout: no one who's had the full appraisal has questioned why I left the PhD. There are factors that aggravate the crime. Yes, it was found. Yes, I was an idiot for leaving it in the bathroom. Yes, I'd done it twice before but retrieved it each time.

But Mr Kenny turned the phone off when he found it; removed and threw away the SIM card; lied to my face about having found it; deleted all my personal photos, videos, music and other files; went out and bought a cable to charge it and connect it to the PC; took it with him around campus; took it on holiday to Fiji; put his own music on there.

And the police have told me that he also tried to tell them he'd found it outside. When they challenged him with my statement, he admitted he found it in the bathroom. He also said that he didn't remember talking to me that morning - but I remember him, and Campus Care sent out the person who unlocked the building to speak to me. Which was Arana Kenny.



That would be fine. I'm a belligerent bastard, I'll be the first to admit it. I'm a belligerent pain in the arse on the blog, and I sound like it - but, and I want to stress this, I didn't say anything to put them off or give them attitude in either the first or the second emails. Disagreeing with something doesn't mean that you have a bad attitude or you're uncooperative. If disagreeing with someone means that in the eyes of the university that you have a bad attitude, then how does anything get sorted out?

They conducted an investigation into the theft they said adhered to principles of natural justice - but they didn't talk to me about what happened at any point, and the police wouldn't have given them any information. Natural justice means that people get a fair hearing and the proceedings are conducted without bias: but if you only talk to the offender, then that's not natural justice.



We're around the same buildings. We see each other all the time. Originally my faculty said, okay, he'll be banned from your offices. But I work all over the university - I use the library, the student union building, I used to teach in the main buildings too. It's not practical. Aside from that, there's no guarantee that given their responses, they'll actually ban him from the buildings.

I have a short temper, too. I'm livid at being treated like this. I won't say what I've felt like doing, but it'd probably get me deported if I lost my carefully cultivated self control.



He's not a cleaner. He's a caretaker who's tasked with building security. He has keys to everywhere. I like the cleaners there. I trust them. I talk to them. They regularly come into our offices and our stuff is safe.

I can understand how you might think that I did this to myself: but again, I'm not going to lump it or leave it. I've had little choice in this, and little say with the university. Why, if I feel marginalised, excluded and effectively punished for catching a member of staff on the rob, should I want to stay at the university? I have no support here. They're banking on me just either staying and putting up with their shit, or leaving and not causing trouble. But they have a duty of care to me and other people. They're failing in that.

What kind of message does this send to other staff? Who else has been caught stealing, and got to keep their job? How many other students have been through the same thing and quietly disappeared or put up with it?

Finally, the cheeky bastard has now applied for a discharge without conviction: he's got away with his job, and now he's trying to get away without a conviction. There will, frankly, be NO consequences for him if he succeeds. I had to change my victim impact statement to reflect how disappointed I am in the fact that he's offered nothing to me of value, hasn't recognised what he's done and now is trying to walk away with his job and his record intact. I'll have borne all the consequences of his actions.

This guy has lied at least twice: to me, and police. His apology, which was forced on me after I said no, is weak, and it's all about him. He actually put a SIM card in the envelope - completely useless to me. And he's got away with his job, and now he's trying to get away with it in court.

I think it's rationally understandable that I'm annoyed. I'm a hothead, but I'm also a reasonable person. But what's happened here, and what he asked for in court isn't reasonable.

Being a principled bridge burner myself, I understand and respect where you are coming from. Scar the fuckers for all of our and their benefit.

[mashman]

I dunno... you can take the boy out of Liverpool etc... and there's an irony in there somewhere. Applying for discharge without conviction shouldn't be an option, I agree. As for the rest, good luck to you and remember YNWA.

[imdying]

What a fucking moaner. He should have simply cut Dix and that niggers hands off, dumped him a few km off the desert road, and then flown back to England that night. Anything short of that is just wasting his time.

[gammaguy]

I no longer have faith or belief in the system, the time has come that we deal with the crims and deadbeats ourselves, the police can't be arsed dealing with crime below rape and murder, the courts don't actually punish the crims, mainly because the judges are/have never been, on the receiving end of criminal behaviour and have no concept of it, sentencing is allways based on predetermined guidlines based on modern "pc" thinking. Last thief that stuck his fingers in my toolbox and got caught by me, won't do it again. A result for society in general.

Stamp on the small crimes and bad behaviours, you give your self a chance of an ordered society with a lesser rate of bigger crime....

Human nature works something like this........

Hmmm'stole that phone got away with it...........hmmm stole that car got away with it........hmmm embezzled that money got away with it..........hmmm what's next?

If they stopped it when it started and not waited for escalation things would be better

Of course that's not the kiwi way we have to give everyone a chance bla bla

[gammaguy]

I was as proud of my cane stripes as I am with now my chicken strips.
Show em off! shoulders back/head held high.

So you've been to Singapore?

[300weatherby]

So you've been to Singapore?

I'll bet he hasn't, getting the cane in a Hong Kong or Singapore cell block is something you would try very hard to forget!, I would rather do the time........

Wish we had it here and had a Judiciary with the balls to call it, you could stop the young wannabe tough crims in their tracks.

[Oakie]

Sup guys. I just checked the blog stats this weekend and found this thread. That's an interesting discussion. Some of you raise some good points. I'd hope they could be answered by reading the emails from the staff at Vic in the blog - they were pretty keen to not do anything beyond the initial offer of restorative justice - but it's a lot of information, and if you read it piecemeal then bits might get left out.

etc etc etc

Jeez man, that was a well considered and articulate response to my comments. You'll never fit in here at KiwiBiker. Next time try a bit of personal abuse, preferably with some 4 letter words, a reference to my mother's sexual habits and at least one reference to Hitler if you want to fit in.

That would be fine. I'm a belligerent bastard, I'll be the first to admit it. I'm a belligerent pain in the arse on the blog,

It really came through that way too. In my job in HR you do sometimes get people who despite being in the right don't do themselves any favours by being belligerently self righteous. On the other hand, I know when a principal is involved the heart can overule the head.

All the best for the future anyway and I hope it all works out for you.