Balls of tacks at Park bring $loo fines

Press, 28 October 1981, Page 4

Balls of tacks at Park bring $loo fines

A Lyttelton dancing teacher who was found with two tack-filled tennis balls which she intended to throw on to Lancaster Park in an effort to force the cancellation of the All Blacks-Spring-bok match on August 15 was said by her counsel, in the District Court yesterday, to have planned the act “with the very highest of moral intentions.” However, Judge Paterson told Simone Sonnenberg, aged 27, that her intention to use the balls was clear and admitted. It was naive for her to suggest that possible injury was not an obvious and foreseeable result, of her in-

tended act of spilling tacks on to a playing field where there was to be constant physical contact amongst players. He convicted the defendant on a charge of carrying an offensive weapon — the balls filled with tacks — on August 15, the day of thefirst rugby test. She was fined $lOO. Sergeant- B. D. Thompson prosecuted. Mr R. J. McMurtrie appeared for the defendant who denied the offence. The defendant admitted having the tack-filled balls, but the defence case relied on her intent in having the balls.

Evidence of an Auckland policewoman, Constable A. C. Burgoyne, on duty at the park that day, was admitted by consent. Her testimony was that she asked to have a look in the defendant’s handbag and found the two balls which had been cut in half, filled with tacks, and the halves taped together. The defendant, in evidence, said she intended to throw the balls on to the ground in ■-the belief that it would stop the game. It was definitely not her intention that she should harm any person or property. She said she was very

“anti-violent.,” Cross-exa-mined, she said she presumed that, if the tacks were thrown on the ground, the teams would not play. She considered that if the game went ahead the players would, probably stand on them. Asked what would happen if players fell to the ground and on to tacks she agreed they “would probably get hurt but it would be very stupid of them.” The defendant agreed that injury to a player could be a “likely consequence” of her action. Mr McMurtrie made legal submissions and contended that the prosecution had not shown that the defendant intended to cause bodily injury. Her only intention in sprinkling tacks was to stop the game. Sergeant Thompson submitted that the defendant had acted in reckless dis regard of the consequences, and was held to intend those consequences. A man, who threw a ball containing glass, tacks, and nails on to the pitch during the same match was fined $lOO by Judge Fraser. John Harold Christie, aged 33, unemployed had admitted behaving in a disorderly manner. Representing himself Christie told the Court that the intention of his protest action was to disrupt the game by making the ground unplayable.