“This has been one of the most difficult and traumatic periods of my life.”
It’s pretty wild how quick a lawyer threatening a lawsuit can bring a person, company, whatever, to heel. And Ian Battrick, the noted Jersey surfer who was accused of being part of a gang of men hassling the hell out of gals at a British surf contest forcing the event to be postponed, has clearly had to bring out the guns.
You’ll remember when Carve magazine wrote,
“One of the surfers named as Ian Battrick, a Jersey resident who visits the area, also ran over a 15-year-old girl mid heat, landing on top of her and pinning her to the reef. The young surfer was unable to reach the surface and was highly traumatised.”
The pile-on was almost universal although, again one hopes your memory serves, I wrote:
My own impression of Ian Battrick, formed many years ago when I lived in Hossegor, was of a nice, if isolated, sorta guy, who ripped in the sort of cold water your ol pal DR would shriek when entering and butcher every damn takeoff at La Piste and La Grave etc.
Ian Battrick subsequently made a comprehensive rebuttal to the accusations on his lightly followed Instagram account. The damage was done, howevs.
Anyway, over at the Luna Surf website, the company Ian Battrick owns, there’s an apology from the Channel Islands Surfing Federation along with a detailed summary of it...
“This has been one of the most difficult and traumatic periods of my life.” It’s pretty wild how quick a lawyer threatening a lawsuit can bring a person, company, whatever, to heel. And Ian Battri...