ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The father of a local teenager has made the heartbreaking decision to ground his eldest child this afternoon after making a shocking discovery that he smokes menthol cigarettes.
In a statement read by a family spokesman, Walter Cleary said that he didn’t make the decision lightly and that he hopes he can move past the ordeal one day.
“It’s with a heavy heart that we must confirm that my eldest child, Eli, was found early this morning in possession of menthol cigarettes,” wrote Cleary.
“We are working through this as a family and we ask that our privacy be respected at this time. Eli is currently receiving counselling and his mother is expected to fully recover but it’s early days at this stage,”
“Initial investigations are pointing to Eli wanted to get fresher breath for the girlfriend and to possibly improve his spotty complexion, however, we don’t know this for certain.”
Police and investigators were quick to shoot down speculation that the 13-year-old made the switch to healthier cigarettes in the hopes of making his high school cross country team, telling The Advocate that there’s no indication that Eli was afraid of playing a contact sport.
Nonetheless, one curious aspect of the tragedy that the authorities refused to rule out was that Eli only managed to get 8.4 in a school beep test last week, which may have put him on a collision course with the lesser durry.
“Anyone who gets a score of less than 10 in the beep test either has man boobs or no ticker,” said Detective Murray Bedbumper.
“We can confirm that Eli received a beep test result last week somewhere around the mid-to-low eights, despite having enough ticker to play rugby league football and not having man boobs,”
“It is a compelling case. Perhaps he wanted to get back in the 12’s where he belongs, we don’t know at this stage. But improving his cardiovascular health is the biggest lead we have at the moment.”
More to come.
