Behaved Offensively

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30980, 9 February 1966, Page 10

Behaved Offensively

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Feb. 8. Mr L. G. H. Sinclair, S.M., fined William Dwyer, aged 32, an advertising clerk, £l5 on charges which arose from a meeting in Myers Park on Sunday, January 16. Dwyer was fined £5 in the Auckland Magistrate’s Court on a charge of using indecent language and £lO on a charge of behaving in an offensive manner. He pleaded not guilty to both charges. Detective-Sergeant E. R. Hutchinson prosecuted. Dwyer conducted his own defence. Vanessa Myrtle Frances Lee, a machinist, said in evidence that at a meeting at Myers Park on January 16 she heard Dwyer at a free speech forum say that churches and Y.W.C.A.'s were nothing but brothels. James Simpson, an auto glazier, said he heard Dwyer say the Queen was nothing but a bludger. Constable A. J. Robinson said that he saw Dwyer speaking on anarchism at the park. There was a crowd of 100 including 30 women and children. Constable Robinson said that Dwyer admitted using the language complained of but said there was nothing the police could charge him with because it was used in a different context. Dwyer said: “I may have offended these people but 1 don’t think much of them anyway.” Giving evidence on his own behalf, Dwyer said that such meetings had been held at the park every Sunday for the

last four months. Several attempts were made by religious groups to wreck the meetings by heckling and threats of violence. Dwyer said that much of the time at the meetings was spent attacking public institutions. The Magistrate: “If this is your speech from the platform 1 do not want to hear it. You have to answer references to the Queen being a bludger and references to the Y.W.C.A.” Dwyer said it was part of his defence that references to the Queen and Y.W.C.A. were inoffensive. “Perhaps I am wrong in trying to bring to the park the academic standards of the university,” he said. He said that a poem which he read out at the meeting had appeared in a university paper in February, 1964. The indecent language charge related to this poem. The Magistrate said that for such a poem to be read in a public park was going a lot further-*—especially with children being present. “While you may get away with the written word, it may be indecent in the presence of a mixed audience.” Dwyer said it was an honest attempt to describe the situation. The Magistrate: “It seems that liberty of speech is that you can put forward ideas but you must put it forward in decent language. That is where you overstepped the mark. He said that Dwyer’s referring to the Y.W.C.A. as a brothel was. undoubtedly offensive. Dwyer, commenting on the allegation that he called the Queen a bludger, said that he said that institutions of

monarchy were parasites on' society. “I probably did use the; word bludger as a cross to heckling.” The Magistrate said both: charges had been proved, j Dwyer could not wrap up offensive or indecent words in | a context. Dwyer: “1 feel that I did nothing wilfully wrong and 1 will give notice to appeal to the Supreme Court. The Magistrate: “You have a right to appeal and as far as I am concerned I am quite happy for you to appeal.” The Magistrate then said that the language used in the first charge was not grossly indecent.