Conservative columnist and Sky News host Andrew Bolt has issued a rare apology to sexual abuse survivor Paris Street, saying he’s thought about his rank comments “every hour since” blurting them out on Tuesday night.
In case you missed it, Bolt used his show, The Bolt Report, to comment on Four Corners‘ investigation into how senior officials at Melbourne’s prestigious St. Kevin’s College responded to the abuse faced by Street.
Bolt stated convicted sex offender and athletics coach Peter Kehoe “hit on” the St. Kevin’s student, who was in Year 9 at the time of Kehoe’s sexual grooming.
The statement appeared to trivialise Kehoe’s grooming in comparison to other sex offences, and Bolt also fudged crucial elements of Kehoe’s sentencing.
In a separate on-air spray, Bolt criticised Four Corners journalist Louise Milligan for her negative response to his initial comments (How that constitutes thinking about his comments “every hour since” their utterance is up for interpretation, we guess).
Street retaliated yesterday, issuing a Facebook post outlining the severity of the abuse he endured while urging Bolt and conservative commentator Gerard Henderson to “build some common decency and human courtesy”.
Last night, finally, Bolt appeared to relent. Sort of. While claiming he was the victim of a “misrepresentation”, Bolt said “I should have thought of Paris Street, the boy, how he might have heard it.”
“I’m really sorry to you Paris, I’m really sorry,” he added.
Referencing his book Still Not Sorry, Bolt said “I am sorry. I’m sorry about that.”
The apology, and the way Bolt couched it with claims of being misrepresented, hasn’t gone down as well as he would have liked.
Fellow controversy lightning rod Ray Hadley used his 2GB radio show to say “By crikey, when it comes to paedophilia, [Bolt has] a very poor record. A very poor record.”
Given Bolt’s penchant for backing convicted paedophiles like Cardinal George Pell, he could potentially deliver a few more apologies.
You can watch his apology to Street here.
