It would be fair to describe Christophe Fauviau as a fanatical tennis dad. In an effort to gain the upper hand for his two children, Fauviau resorted to the unorthodox and rarely used method of drugging their tennis opponents with Temesta. An anti-depressant, Temesta causes extreme drowsiness. Unfortunately for one of his son’s opponents, Alexandre Lagardere, this proved fatal. Lagardere crashed his car and died after a tennis match.

Earlier this year, Fauviau was sentenced in France to eight years jail for his role in Alexandre’s death. In court Fauviau said ‘I felt I was permanently being judged by my children's performance. I was not well at the time. Each match was a terrible strain on me.’ Perhaps the media had taken his quote out of a larger context, but it appears that even having a death on your soul is not enough for some people to let go of their victim mentality. How could he talk about the strain he was under in front of the family that had just lost their son because of him?

Fauviau is another example of how children’s sport can bring out the worst in some parents. They spoil the ‘game’ for their children by making it all about themselves. My girlfriend’s sister is a netball umpire and she has had parents yell out ‘slut’, ‘stupid cow’ and even had one father shout out that he was going to bash her after the game if she didn’t start umpiring properly. These incidents have occurred during junior netball games and I don’t think any of the offending parents would give a second thought to their behaviour.

At times, even the bastion of justice, our courts, rule in favour of individuals who refuse to accept their own responsibility. In May, former Aussie Crawl lead guitarist Simon Binks smashed his Mercedes-Benz into a power pole while being almost three times over the legal alcohol limit. He was awarded $330,000 for his efforts. The courts ruled that the council did not provide adequate road-work signage. Binks, however, is the only driver who has managed to have an accident at the scene of the road-works. It might be a long shot, but I have a little theory why this might be. I call it DUI.

We all want to see justice done. We want to see the mistreated compensated and the guilty confronted with the consequences of their behaviour. We want the wrong to be righted. Injustice pairs back our casual associations and cuts us to the quick of our opinions, our principles and our ideologies. The only problem is who defines justice? Who separates the innocent from the guilty?

Referees try in sport and they cop a gob full. We Aussies are pretty good at giving it too – Harry Kewell after the Socceroos lost to Brazil and Ricky Stuart after, well, most Roosters games immediately comes to mind. That’s not to say we should never question the guy with the whistle but that justice is contentious and the dispensing of it even more so. And until we find that elusive consensus on what is right and wrong, we will continue (rightly or wrongly) to feel a little hard done by in one way or the other.

Ben Cooling