“What’s in a kiss?” asks Mousie coyly

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 16

“What’s in a kiss?” asks Mousie coyly

The trial took place at Christchurch yesterday, before Mr Justice Lagging and a jury of 12, of Graham Mousie, a current All Black, on a charge that he did perform an indecent act upon another male, namely centre-three-quar-ter Bruce Easily, by kissing Easily after Easily had scored the winning try for the All Blacks in their match against the Venezuelan Ocelets. Mr U. R. Gilty led for the Crown, and Mr I. B. Prolix, drinking constantly from a half-gallon jar of warm beer, fell heavily to the ground for the defence. In his opening, Mr Gilty told the jury that the kissing of scorers was a foul plague or malaise which bad spread from soccer into cricket and now threatened rugby, which was both the keystone and foundation stone of New Zealand society. “Emotion is all very well in its place.” cried Mr Gilty, shaking with rage, "but that place is not upon the verdant football fields of this fair land of ours. The impassivity of our All Blacks is a priceless national heritage. It is up to us, in our generation, to preserve and protect it for our children, ot other close relatives. I say to you, this man

Monstie is a -mouser, I mean the other way

round.” Mr Gilty then showed television clips of the incident. The foreman of the jury asked if they could also have a look at episode 4 of. “Who Pays the Ferryman?” but this request was declined by the judge.

Opening the case for the defence, Mr I. B. Prolix told the jury that ever since that quiet summer afternoon at Runnymede. when the barons had forced King John to sign Magna Carta, the right of a free-born English rugby player to kiss a try-scorer had been central to our understanding of the law. “You saw the try?” he demanded. “Was it not a brilliant try? Was it not incredibly moving? Did it not make you want to kiss somebody? I know it did me. Unfortunately the person I kissed was my wife, who misinterpreted the gesture with the result that having aroused her libido in this way, I was not allowed to watch the rest of the game.

"But that is of no moment. What is at stake here is the future of a great player. Are you going to cast Mousie into the shades of the prison house? Or will you allow him to stride, proud, free

and strong, upon the football. fields of the world?" In his evidence, Mousie said that he hoped he would make it into the All Black side for the forthcoming tour of Wales. As far as the incident with Easily was concerned, he said he felt that rugby was the winner.

The jury acquitted Mousie without, leaving the box, and in fact several of them had to be dragged bodily from the box after the conclusion of the trial, their explanation being that serving on a jury beat working. After the trial, Mousie was pardoned by the Gov-ernor-General. Authorities differ on the effect of a pardon on a man who has already been acquitted. The Prime Minster, Mr Muldoon, said that the view of Cabinet was that the pardon Was equivalent to a stolen cheque, but the former Labour Attorney-General, Dr Marvin Thinly, said that in his view’ the pardon was the legal equivalent of a discharge of effluent into a protected waterway.

Meanwhile, Mousie and Easily have gene for a holiday to Norfolk Island, as Easily put it, “to get away from the prying eyes and ears, duckie.”