Mr Couch unsympathetic

Press, 2 March 1982, Page 6

Mr Couch unsympathetic

. The" Minister of Police (Mp •Couch) said yesterday, that anyone who was foolish enough to get mixed up in a riot deserved. all. he got. 'Referring; to .the; assault on three clowns, Mr Couch said: “Fair-minded /New Zealanders who have seen film of the riot in Dominion Road, , Auckland, on; September',(l2, . 1981, will find no fault‘ with / Police Commissioner , Wal--1 ton’s statement in the clowns ' incident. . .“The police have made exhaustive inquiries, and have given the complaining clowns all reasonable assistance with their complaints.” "No sensible person would approve of brutality, by the police ori anyone else, but anyone who deliberately walked into, the centre of a riot must accept some risk of ! being hurt,-he said. . ! But; the Opposition’s i' Shadow: Minister of Justice, | Mr F. D. O’Flynn, Q.C., drew i parallels between the beating

of clowns and .'the death during a demonstration ; in .’London of a New Zealander, Blair Peach in April,. 1979. The inability of- ;the clowns ■ to positively indentify the officers involved 'in the incident was similar'to the inability of protesters to indentify members of the Metropolitan Police Special Patrol Group after Mr Peach had died from a blow to the head during a demonstration against the Right Wing National-Front. "This should hot be allowed to happen in a discip-’ lined force,” •Mr O’Flynn said, . (i 1 - The number, of suspects, was very small jbut instead of trying to-’identify those responsible from the start',' “the police did all they could to avoid it.” “They began far too long after the event with a farcical identification parade