Picture In Newspaper

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 1

Picture In Newspaper

(Neu> Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 15. The Commissioner of Police (Mr C. L. Spencer) today welcomed the publication yesterday of a series of photographs depicting the recent visit to New Plymouth of an Auckland motor-cycle gang, the self-styled “Hell’s Angels.”

The photographs, which were used as a full-page picture in the “Evening Post,” showed members of the gang, long-haired and leering, posing with a swastika flag outside the New Plymouth police station.

One of the gang in this] particular photograph and! others in the series has a large crudely-made crucifix about his neck. Another shows a member of the gang with fist raised as If to attack a policeman who

has his back turned, while others are shown wearing Nazi medals hanging from their leather jackets. In an article which it published with the photographs, the "Evening Post” said another photograph in its possession of public sexual relations. too obscene for publication, had been passed to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice and the Leader of the Opposition.

Today, Mr Spencer said that such gangs “together with our large criminal element, present a real threat to our way of life.” The police would do whatever possible to remove this threat. “These "angels’ and there are other gangs like them throughout the country not only have contempt for authority, but show a startling soullessness and complete lack of the emotions of decency when thwarted by decent people. or even by one of their own kind. “Their cruelty is well known to us.” The problem was not merely a police one, nor was it one for the Government only £o solve.

| “It is a problem in which every law-abiding citizen has a responsibility,” said Mr Spencer. “I know of no better way than the publication of such pictures to let people know the problem facing the police

in dealing with such gangs, and it should be readily understood why we seek public co-operation,” he said. The acting officer in charge of the New Plymouth police district, Superintendent F. L. Diggle denied that the gang created a major disturbance. “Apart from the abnormal noise of motor-cycles and the generally unkempt appearance of the riders, they made little impact on the peace and serenity of New Plymouth,” he said.