CPJ

Unlikely as this may seem, the story began on the 20th September 1990, when I walked into the Auckland Central Police Station about 11 pm on my way to a night club run by Simon Grigg, and asked the police constable on duty what the law was in relation to cruelty to animals and specifically the Auckland Zoo. Having gone to the zoo that day I was concerned that many of the animals, including the elephant Kashin were housed in extremely, it seemed to me, cramped and unnecessarily small cages. As I had had a couple of beers with my dinner, I desperately needed to use a toilet, so I didnt plan on staying for a long chat, but had a few minutes to fill before the club opened, and it was on my way.

Unfortunately, another policeman arrived and interjected himself into the conversation with the woman police constable, unnecessarily I thought, and asked me to leave. There was no reason for me to do so as I was the only person in the foyer, so I asked him politely if I coulld use the toilet, which he refused. Then he became beligerant, so I called him a pig, and I was arrested and charged with trespass in the police station. Next day I went to court, and was bailed. Not knowing any Auckland barristers, I asked my school friend Clive Taylor who worked for and is now a partner with Auckland law firm Bell Gully if he knew of any. He had flatted with a guy who was a barrister, so I contracted a lawyer, appeared on the scheduled day, pleaded guilty of trespass on my lawyer's advice, even though I wasnt happy about it.While I was in the cell at the court conferring with my lawyer, my cousins young daughter who was about four and had come to the court with my cousin kept coming up to the glass door, and the lawywer dashed out and consulted with the police about the charge, and kept coming back. He told me I was going to plead guilty.

When the Judge asked me how I was going to plead, my lawyer said "guilty" a number of times, but I didnt't say anything. The Judge kept asking my lawyer, and eventually I said "guilty" and the Judge then had words with my lawyer in which the word "blackmail" was mentioned. I wondered if he meant extorsion, but I was fined about $250, and with my lawyer's bill was all done in about two weeks, at a total cost of $500. All good except I made a complaint of assault against the arresting officer, a Constable Brent New, but this was investigated and found not to be the case by the police. My allegation was that when I was arrested, the constable tried to choke me from behind, using unnecessary force to restrain me when none was required, just because I called him a male chauvenist PIG!, which made him angry. I couldn't speak for about two days as a result of the pressure he applied to my throat, and I feared for my life because I thought he was going to crush my wind-pipe if I relaxed. But that was all over and done with as far as I was concerned.

8th April 2014

Christmas January 1991

Mum died on 11th of January 1990 at about 11 minutes past 11. I had been working the night before as an operator on the finger jointer machine and got the phone call about 11pm that mum's ulcer had ruptured and that I should come to the hospital immediately. She had been in Tauranga hospital about 10 days, and my sister had come back from Brisbane with her young daughter who was about four, and she was at the hospital with Mary. The previous year I'd had an accident in the factory and had had my hand badly crushed in the machine, and had had the index finger on my right hand amputated. Mum obviously only had a short time to live, but I was reluctant to shut the factory down, so I told them I'd be in after work, about midnight or 1 am. When I was there, Jenny, my sister was changing the drip because the nurse had severe cramps and couldn't reach up to do it. Everything seemed normal, mum was sleeping and talking really fast about things, a painting on teh wall, so I stayed a couple of hours and left as I thought I'd have to work the next day. My cousin Phil was with me that morning when the phone call came that Mum had just died. Dad had died on 12 February 1982, aged 64 of renal failure, so funerals and death weren't as frightening as they would have been if mum hadn't been there to guide us through the process, but I remember the phone call dad received when his mother died, and how sad he had been. There is nothing else like losing your mother, whether she is past her alloted time on four score years and ten, or not. It didnt take me long to get to the hospital and mum was still warm.

A year later, my sister came back from Brisbane again, to sort out the property she was going to take back with her, and again Marttea, her daughter, my neice, was with her, but things didn't go well. She was still upset. I'd given up my job at the factory because being alone in a big dark building at night with the memories was just too much for me. Her funeral had been very hard for me because I didn't know at that stage that she had had carcinoma of the lungs, and I felt her life was too short at 74 years.

One day we three decided to goto the beach, which is only about two miles away, but because my sister had been so argumenttative with me I decided too let her drive, and took a cask of wine with me and decided just to get drunk and let her negative comments drift over me. It wasn't the perfect solution, but I had had enough, and just wanted to have fun. In the year since my mother had died, I'd been drinking rather heavily anyway, mainly gin, so it wasn't unusual for me. I'd taken a course at teh Polytech doing computer science, but had dropped out, and I'd bought a decent computer so was just exploring the early "internet", just a few random bulletin boards, through my modem. When we came home, instead of getting involved, I just relaxed in my sitting room watching television, but the hassling continued.  (more)

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