‘Being All Black did not come into it’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33062, 1 November 1972, Page 1

‘Being All Black did not come into it’

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, October 31.

The police, in withdrawing a charge of offensive behaviour against Grant Bernard Batty, were not concerned with the fact that Batty was an All Black, the Commissioner of Police (Mr W. H. A. Sharp) said today.

He said the police had been concerned only with Batty’s travel arrangements.

Batty, aged 21, a Wellington loan arrears officer, was convicted and fined $25 by Mr T. G. Maxwell, S.M., in the Queenstown Magistrate’s Court on October 16

on a charge of casting offensive matter.

A charge of offensive behaviour, a more serious offence, was withdrawn at the request of the police. During the hearing the Magistrate said that an information properly laid before the Court had been withdrawn for what, in the circumstances, might be no other good reason than a request by the defendant himself under unusual circumstances. WRITTEN STATEMENT Mr Sharp, in a written statement, said the criticism directed at the Police Department over the withdrawing of one charge and substituting another against Batty appeared to have been based on the incorrect assumption that it was done because he was an All Black.

Batty had been summoned by the police to appear before the Queenstown’s Magistrate’s Court on October 16 on a charge which might have resulted in a prison sentence, though this was not likely In the case of a first offender.

Mr Sharp said that most magistrates insisted upon the defendant being present in court in such cases.

When the police learned that Batty would be in Auckland on October 16 en route to the United Kingdom, they laid a lesser charge carrying a penalty of a fine only. This enabled the charge to be disposed of during the defendant’s absence. “The application to withdraw the original charge which, incidentally, the Magistrate could have declined, was made on these grounds only,” Mr Sharp said. “The police have in the past shown similar consideration to citizens with no claim to fame at all, though there is no aggregate record of the instances in which this is done. TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS “Because of the requirement that they must appear in court, such people could in effect incur a penalty out of all proportion to the facts of their case.

"In this instance, the police were concerned only with Batty’s travel arrangements, and not with his being an All Black. They would have done the same for any citizen with similar travel arrangements who would be faced with such an untoward disruption of his plans.”