Some kid are born tough
A teenage girl who released nude photos of two star St Kilda footballers has turned up to the club's first training session of the year today with posters declaring "scandal in progress" and banners urging the AFL to show her some respect.
The 17-year-old, under police escort, said she was also planning to distribute two more lewd photographs of players but backed down after receiving a hostile response from the crowd, which had gathered to watch the Saints train at Seaford.
"There's people yelling things out to me right now," she told The Age.
"One guy came up to me and was, like, abusing me for about 10 minutes in front of the media and saying I'm not welcome here and things like that.
"I'm honestly really concerned about my safety of being here. If I wasn't standing here with the cameras and stuff I think I would have been knocked out already."
The Melbourne teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been at the centre of a legal battle since she posted explicit photographs of Saints captain Nick Riewoldt and another of midfielder Nick Dal Santo on her Facebook page in December.
The photographs went viral on the internet and sparked a furious reaction from St Kilda, which claims the photographs were taken on an end-of-year trip to Miami more than 12 months ago.
Last month, Justice Shane Marshall said he had formed the view that the photos had been taken by fellow St Kilda player Sam Gilbert. The girl agreed through her lawyer the images would be deleted from her computer and destroyed.
The teenager said she arrived at the training ground about 1am today and put up a number of large banners around the ground.
One said: "RESPECT. AFL can you please spell that for me?"; while another read "HU$H".
"There was a few security guards there that were waiting for me," the teenager said.
"They were like, 'Hi, you won't be able to post them, this is private property.' I had to post them on the side, but then when I showed up in the morning one of my friends told me that she had seen the St Kilda officials pull them down."
The teenager arrived under police escort at the training ground this morning.
It was unclear whether any of the players, including Riewoldt and Dal Santo who were at the two-hour session, had seen the banners.
She also distributed a number of handmade posters lambasting the St Kilda club, but pulled back when the crowd realised what she was doing.
The posters carried slogans such as "scandal in progress" and "beware of St Scandal".
Today's publicity stunt was a manoeuvre to keep her story in the public eye, she said.
She also revealed she was writing, with her manager, the last two chapters of a book.
"I just wanted to hand out the signs and banner today so I can keep telling my story," she said.
"You know how it is in the news, everything dies down after a few days but if I keep it going and keep releasing my blogs and when my book comes out it will still be relevant."
After the training session, St Kilda chief executive Michael Nettlefold said he was concerned for the woman, but equally concerned for the club's players.
"It's a complex and difficult situation. We think at this point in time that we need to let a little bit of the emotion sort of move away from the situation and we're about focusing on 2011," he said.
"We'd like to find in due course a sensible solution to the situation.
"We have concerns for the girl. Clearly, we have concerns for our players as well."
Unable to enter the club's headquarters or speak to Mr Nettlefold, the teenager littered the side of the oval with her posters in front of reporters while Saints security guards collected them as they blew over the road.
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