To eat at Spur or not to eat at Spur, that seems to be the question.

The franchise did an about-turn last week in the face of pressure from groups like Solidarity (HERE), which angered many South Africans who saw that decision as a slap in the face.

Talking about slaps in the face, let’s turn our attention to the man in the video. He has somehow managed to keep a very low profile since the incident, but News24 managed to find out some details that might be of interest:

News24 can reveal that the man, a car salesman based in Rustenburg, North West, had five cases against him between June 2005 and November 2011 which allegedly included assaulting his wife in public.

“[The cases] include three of common assault, one of malicious damage to property and one of contravention of Domestic Violence Act,” North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone.

Four of the charges were withdrawn, and he was found not guilty in the fifth, but where there’s smoke…

What you’re about to hear might sound familiar:

In two of the cases, News24 understands, the man was accused of hitting his wife with his fists at a rugby club. And in another case, the woman opened a common assault case against him after he allegedly hit her at their home.

Why don’t we take a trip down memory lane?

Check out around the 17-second mark, and see if that isn’t one step away from clobbering a woman half his size in public:

So the likes of Solidarity and Afriforum moaned about injustice, saying the woman should have been banned as well. In light of the revelations about the man’s past, have they readdressed their stance?

Afriforum spokesperson Ernst Roets told News24 that the revelations were “irrelevant”.

“The fact that a bigger picture is now coming to light about what this person has been involved with at another stage of his life is in our view completely irrelevant to this particular outcome.

“Both of them behaved poorly in our opinion, and I think both of them should be ashamed of themselves,” Roets said…

“The fact is there was a spat between two people, Spur apologised to the one and banned the other one and I don’t think that that is an appropriate way to deal with it.”

He emphasized that the reason that the white Afrikaner community had reacted the way it did, was because they were tired of being used as “political punching bags”.

“That’s the way how many white people experience it. They are tired of being used as political punching bags. They are tired of being used as scapegoats and being blamed for everything and they are tired of double standards,” Roets said.

Shame. I think the only person who was close to being used as the punching bag here was the woman.

[source:news24]