Tony Veitch's statement after his guilty plea

Tony Veitch's statement after his guilty plea
Press Release
Tony Veitch

When I wrote this, I was trying to come up with words about how I felt about all this, I wasn't sure but today I can honestly say, while this has been an absolutely hideous time for everyone in my life, and I say everyone, my family everybody, you have no idea how relieved I am that this is over.

Until now because of severe legal constraints and the agreement I signed, I've been unable to say anything to anybody, let alone defend myself. From today, that will stop.

Despite what some in the media have reported over the last nine months, I never shied away from what happened on that night over three years ago.

I paid Kristin's medical costs. I was so concerned about what had happened and it was so out of character that I undertook counselling to help me understand how I was driven to such a place. That is not me and it will never be me again. I wish I had handled things differently that night.

I told my wife, I told my family, I told my close friends exactly what had happened on January 29, 2006. They stood by me then and they stand by me now and for that I am eternally grateful.

When it was necessary, I also told my employers at TVNZ and I re-iterate, I told them the full and utter truth.

I also believe that if I didn't pay the $150,000, our wedding day would have been at considerable risk.

What still confounds me, and even today it still confounds me, is my misguided belief that Kristin and I actually parted on good terms.

While we realised that our relationship could not work anymore, we remained in contact for at least 13 months after the incident, good contact.

Today is a result of some long hard thinking on my part and my family's part and my wife's part. We had two choices, a day in court, which I can honestly say I desperately wanted but I knew would be at least two years away, two years to wait for a day in court or we could end this now and save everyone more pain, allow my wife and our family to get back to a normal life. This has not been normal over the past nine months for anybody. Everybody has suffered.

I now look forward to working with the charities who I love and that is the best thing about this sentence, I can get back to working with the charities and doing my community service with charities that I am passionate about.

I am grateful sense has prevailed and the other charges have been dropped.

As I said months ago, when I walked out of here, I was stunned those charges had even been laid.

There is one final point I would like to make, much has been written and said over the past nine months that defies belief. As a journalist, I am at a loss as to how to understand how certain media organisations could run with stories on the basis of a source and without fact.

From today we will begin legal action against them in the hope that they realise that it is one thing to condemn a person by the media, it is another to slander them.

Thank you to all of those people who have helped me to get through this. Thank you to my family, who I know are all here, have been simply incredible.

To the people out there, you would not believe the letters, the correspondence. We got one box that had little quotes in it that everyday, Zoe and I read. The people out there in New Zealand, you guys have been incredible.

But most of all, thank you to my wife Zoe, I'm not sure where she is, she has been the most rational, the most logical, the most intelligent, the most gorgeous, the most beautiful woman in the world. I quite simply say, I chose a goody, and I could not have survived this without her. So, to Zoe, I say thank you, to all of you, I say thank you and I'm glad it is over.

ENDS

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