New Zealand mother Cindy George and her three children – Pio, Teuruaa and Telyzshaun – are believed to have died after inhaling the fumes of their car, left running in a garage to keep the battery “ticking over”.
While many took to Twitter to share their sympathy with the grieving family, socialite and gossip columnist Pebbles Hooper shocked everyone with her horrifically insensitive tweet regarding the incident.
Hooper, a columnist for the New Zealand Herald, wrote: “I’ll get major slack for this, but leaving a car running inside a closed garage while your kids are in the house is natural selection.”
Needless to say, Hooper received a barrage of criticism for her insensitivity, and she quickly realised the error of her ways. She went on to erase the tweet, later posting another in which she apologised for her wording.
“I deeply regret any distress caused to the family. I apologise for my wording and take responsibility for upsetting those involved, and I was careless in my actions. The issue I regrettably tried to raise was about parental negligence and the precautions needed to ensure the safety of those who are unable to care for themselves,” she wrote.
She added: “I never aimed to target or isolate this issue to one family.”
The Herald’s weekend editor, Miriyana Alexander, confirmed this week that she had accepted Hooper’s resignation from the paper.
“As I said on Sunday, the views she expressed in her tweet were distressing, and are obviously not shared by me or the Herald...I have also apologised to a family spokesman for the content of the tweet and the distress it caused to them,” Alexander added.
