Skate competition judge snaps and charges teen
The man at the centre of a violent incident during a skateboarding competition has apologised and spoken to police.
‘‘I know I shouldn’t have done it,’’ Craig Platt, 48, said, after a video of the incident at Auckland’s newly opened Victoria Park skate park showed him shouldercharging a young skateboarder to the ground and shoving a man in the neck when confronted about it.
Mr Platt, an artist from Herne Bay and an avid skateboarder himself, was a judge at the Skinny & Serenity National Grom Skate Comp and said he ‘‘snapped’’ after teenagers not competing in the event kept ‘‘crashing through the middle of it’’.
‘‘They [the teenagers] were cutting off people in the competition. One of them actually whacked into one of the little kids. I was getting confused [as to] who was in the comp and who wasn’t, and I was trying to score these kids. It [the skate park] was all closed off and they knew it.’’
Mr Platt said he had asked the teenagers to stop interfering on several occasions.
‘‘When he came back again I just reacted because there were little kids behind me and I just lunged at him. I wasn’t trying to punch him or anything. It was just a reaction.’’
Mr Platt admitted he was ‘‘fuming’’ by the time he crashed into the teenager, but said the boy ‘‘got up, gave me a mouthful and just continued to do it’’.
He said event security then intervened. Mr Platt said he tried to apologise but ‘‘they just told me where to go’’.
Mr Platt was then approached by Leighton Dyer who told him ‘‘the competition should be over’’ because of the incident.
‘‘He came flying after me and was telling me I was beating up these kids and he was right in my face. That was the dumbest thing I did because I just grabbed him and shoved him away. That was an overreaction. I’d had enough. All these kids were rarked up again and were laughing.’’
Mr Platt said the video showed him in a bad light.
‘‘It doesn’t show me how I am. I look big. I mean, I keep fit, I can’t help the way I look. I skate, I’m at the skate park all the time. I convince other dads to take it up. I pick up injured kids.’’
Mr Platt, whose 11-year-old son competed in the competition, said he had visited the police yesterday to ‘‘explain the story to them’’ and ‘‘if I’m in trouble I’ll face it’’.
Police are not investigating the incident.
Mr Platt said he had received threatening emails calls all day.
The competition was aimed at under-16s and was sponsored by Serenity, a rehab centre run by convicted drug trafficker William Murdoch, the former partner of Auckland socialite Aja Rock.
According to an online post written by Mr Dyer, organisers armed young skaters with spray cans to tag the park with the sponsors’ logos.
An Auckland Council spokesman said they were ‘‘concerned by reports of what happened yesterday and urgently investigating’’.
Event co-sponsor Skinny Mobile has distanced itself from the controversy, saying it was ‘‘gutted’’ about the state of the park at the end of the event and had no idea it would happen.
A council spokesman said the event was permitted but required a health-and-safety plan. Conditions included that no graffiti or artwork was left on the park and that the cost of repairs for any damage would be paid by the organiser.
The Skinny & Serenity National Grom Skate Comp Vic Skate Park was billed as the country’s first ‘‘pro-junior under-16 skate comp’’, with a first prize of $500 cash and $5000 worth of other prizes.
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