New Zealanders will be grief-stricken at the news of Eric Watson’s four months prison sentence.
There will be wailing across the land, churches will fill with skybayers praying he wins his appeal, a petition will be organised led by Jacinda and inside a week garner a million signatures, demanding his release, and so it goes.
Then again, perhaps there’s a slight chance I’m reading the public mood wrong and the reaction will be one of great glee. If so, don’t count your chickens.
Watson has a magnificent track record of evading culpability when his commercial endeavors go belly-up as they all seem to do, leaving much distress in their wake.
He’s the Houdini of liability evasion and doubtless will appeal, arguing that a prison sentence will stymie his heart-felt intentions to earn through ventures in America etc so as to pay his creditors.
If I was acting for him I’d argue he’s suffering from colonialism, stemming from the bloody French invasion in 1066 which suffering led to his ancestors fleeing to New Zealand and from which he’s not yet recovered. It works in New Zealand with Maoris so might be a goer.