Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 16. 12th July 1973
Harewood-Weedons and the Ghost of Te Kooti
Harewood-Weedons and the Ghost of Te Kooti
Gill's Bill may never have made it through Parliament but another law already exists, under which you can be found guilty of an offence by mere physical association with lawbreakers. Section 86 of the Crimes Act, relating to crimes against public order, states that a person may be found guilty of the crime of Unlawful Assembly if he is a member of a group which acts in such a manner that a reasonable person would have feared a 'tumultuous' breach of the peace. The maximum penalty is a year in prison.
The law has not been invoked for some time, one of the few cases being against Te Kooti in 1886 for his stand against the British colonialists. It was rediscovered when the police conducted research into existing laws in preparation for the Springbok tour. The hopes of the police and the government were more than fulfilled when they gave the 'Unlawful Assembly' law a test run against people arrested during the demonstrations against US military bases at Weedons, Christchurch.
Police In Tangles
The prosecution tied itself in tangles (their star witness viewed the scene while blinded by spotlights and under a barrage of stones), and lacked any concrete evidence. But the magistrate. Mr Patterson, entirely discounted all defence submissions and found all 12 defendants guilty of unlawful assembly and wilful damage.
The prosecution's case was that damage to property had occurred at the demonstration and that the defendants had been arrested shortly afterwards at a police roadblock. The defendants claimed that the majority of the damage had been caused by people that had driven away shortly before the main group. Police witnesses denied the possibility of an unknown car escaping.
Some Spotlight!
However, in denying that a car could have escaped unnoticed the prosecution got itself into rather a muddle. They-had presented evidence of a spotlight being used by demonstrators and of a sign being removed by them, yet neither of these objects had been found in the vehicles that had been stopped. After this contradiction had become clear the stolen sign was not mentioned again and Judge Patterson did not refer to it in his summing up. The matter of the spotlight was "solved" by evidence that a "spotlight" had been found in the defendant Suggate's car. This "spotlight" was a 25-watt bulb on the end of a cord. In his summing up, Patterson said that he accepted that this was the spotlight used.
Due to the vague and general wording of Section 86 the police were able to produce a wide variety of evidence to prove that the demonstration was "tumultuous". A bottle of insect repellent, a can of tyre repair and a walking stick, found in one of the demonstrator's cars were produced by Sergeant Kavanagh as "offensive weapons" which could have been used by demonstrators to disable policemen. When ambitious young defence lawyer. Stephen Erber, asked Kavanagh why he hadn't confiscated the car's jack, spanners and spare wheel as these could also have been used as offensive weapons he was met with an embarrassed silence.
Various objects found after the demonstration were also produced as exhibits. These included a section of telephone cable, an empty whiskey bottle, copies of "Ferret", firecrackers, posters and a letter. The letter turned out to be an invitation to a M.O.W. darts evening.
Enough to Judge
All that was proved in the prosecution's case was that damage had been done while the defendants were present and for Mr Patterson that was enough "To rule otherwise", he said rejecting the defence submissions, "would mean that society had no protection against this type of demonstration." He made no reference to any need for the protection of demonstrators' rights. The rationale was that these people had attended a demonstration where violence had occurred and thus they must be punished, whether or not they were guilty of any crime.
Patterson handled the case very intelligently. After convicting all 12 defendants on both charges he sentenced each of them to one year's probation, $10 costs, $12.50 restituion and twentyfour hours community service. A very liberal sentence indeed, in contrast to his strong words a few minutes earlier. In fact, Judge Patterson, made a wise decision in imposing such light penalties. No one is going to criticise his decision when the "offenders" were punished so leniently. But now the police have the goahead they will use this law whenever they can't think of any other and the penalties will only get tougher.