Summons Received at Bellingen, 24 May 2007 FACTS SHEET H 30645978 FUTURE CAN Offender : Graeme Dunstan Address : Station Road Stawell Vic, 0 Nationality : Unknown D.O.B : 04/08/1942 Occupation : Activist CNI No. : 694883177 Seq. No. Offenses 1. Resist officer in execution of duty T2 Act Crimes Act 1900 Section 58 INFORMANT Name : LSCON PAUL JONES Station : WEST WYALONG ACCEPTING OFFICER Name : CON AMANDA GAYNOR Station : Griffith Date : 26/04/07 COURT Court Name : West Wyalong Local Court Court Date : 28/06/2007 WITNESSES Police Witnesses : 0 Civilian Witnesses : 0 BAIL Bail Type : No Bail Conditions ANTECEDENT The accused is a single man with no fixed place of abode. FULL FACTS Facts: About 9.30 am on the 9 April 2007 Polic e were called to the Barrick Gold Mine at Lake Cowal in relation to Protestors entering the mine site. Police then went to the Travelling Stock Reserve where a camp had been set up by protesters. At this time Police observed a number of persons in breach of bail conditions placed on them the previous evening as a result of them trespassing. Police arrested one of these persons and he was placed in the rear of a caged police vehicle. At this point the accused Graeme DUNSTAN has began to yell at Police that they were not welcome here. He then began to yell to the protest group which numbered in excess of 40 persons to "Blockade the van, block them." He went to the back of the van and tried to push one of the Police away from the vehicle. He then yelled "get out release him". He was encouraging other protestors to assist in trying to get the prisoner from the back of the Police vehicle. The group of protestors had then surrounded the Police vehicle. Police were unable to remove the vehicle as the protestors took hold of the Police vehicle front and rear preventing any movement. The accussed was standing infront of the vehicle and was removed once before shouting "Let him go" and yelling at Police. All were shouting various remarks at the Police and were linked together with their arms. The Police vehicle was unable to be moved and Police being outnumbered were unable to remove all persons from around the vehicle. Dunstan was taken hold of by Police in an attempt to remove him from infront of the vehicle. He resisted this action by pulling and twisting his body. He was removed from the front of the vehicle only to move to the rear of the vehicle. All the time he was shouting at the group of protestors to not let the police vehicle out. It was then decided to release the person from the rear of the police vehicle to calm the situation. Action will be taken against this person and others seen breaching their bail conditions when they appear at West Wyalong Local Court on the 26/6/2007. . Facts created by : LSCON PAUL JONES Statement to the West Wyalong Court 19 June 2007 The Clerk West Wyalong Court Court Street WEST WYALONG dear Sir, re: Court Attendance DUNSTAN H 30645968 28 June 2007 This letter confirms the telephone conversations of 12 June and my request for an adjournment of the court attendance to which I have been summonsed on 28 June. I am a migratory pensioner nomad at this time in North Queensland. I beg the understanding of the court and ask that another time be set, preferably after the 10 September when I will be in or near the West Wyalong district again. I give notice that it is my intention to plead not guilty to the charge of resisting a police officer in the execution of his or her duty at Lake Cowal on 9 April last. Apart from the quibble about whether I was yelling during the incident, as the Sergeant describes, or speaking authoritatively as I maintain, I do not dispute the description of the incident as outlined by Acting Sergeant Paul Jones in the Facts Sheet. I want to put to the court that I was acting in good faith - Crimes Act 1914 Section 24 F (d) - to prevent a miscarriage of justice, that the Acting Sergeant was not acting out of a sense of duty but rather he was acting out of anger and personal grievance. I suggest that his actions were not supported by his Area Command and that if his actions had not been resisted he would have created needless trouble and wasted the time of the Court. When the police arrived at the Lake Cowal protest camp on Monday 9 April they were four in number and they had come from the West Wyalong station in two vehicles, a patrol car and a paddy wagon. The vehicles pulled up about 5 meters from my camp. The camp had nominated me as meeter and greeter of police and so I greeted the Acting Sergeant respectfully. "Top of the morning to you," I said. "Is there anyone in particular you are looking for?" Acting Sergeant Jones strode past without making eye contact and replied curtly: "We will tell you when we find them." From the Acting Sergeant's voice and manner I perceived him to be angry. From the way the other officers tarried behind, I could see they were not angry and nor as motivated as he to be there making arrests. The day before Easter Sunday, had been tumultuous for the protestors both because of the mine site invasion and the subsequent arrests but also for the life threatening menace experienced when a mine employee had charged about the camp in his 4WD ute attempting to run protesters down. Many of the young people had been traumatised by that event but after a campfire debriefing and much beautiful music, they were at ease, gratified by the media success of the protest action and packing up to depart. The protestors were mostly students rallied by the Student Environment Activist Network and they had come from Sydney, Newcastle, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane. They had a long journey ahead of them. I judged the Acting Sergeant's manner to be as insensitive as it was offensive and I challenged him on it, calling to him over a distanced of about 10 meters and in a voice meant to be heard by the whole camp: "That's rude. That behaviour is not welcome here." He responded by calling back: "The invasion of the mine site was rude." He was referring to the fact that in the course of the convivial conversations we had had prior to the site invasion, I had not informed him the protestors' invasion intentions. I perceived that he had taken the mine site invasion as a personal affront, that he felt himself deceived and that he thought the events reflected poorly on his command. In that instant I realised that as the oldest and most experienced manager of protest present that the Acting Sergeant needed to learn some restraint and respect. It was with this motivation that I acted to rally the camp to resist the arrest of one of our number. What followed was a determined tussle of bodies and some expressions of outrage, but on the whole the resistance and the release of the prisoner was achieved without violence, malice or anger. Once the prisoner was released two or three of the protestors remained in conversation with the police officers but most withdrew and continued with their preparations for departure. I went back to my van and made a cup of tea. The police officers hung about for at least another hour and when it was obvious that no further police support would be forthcoming, they drove off. I exchanged no further words with Acting Sergeant Jones and saluted him as he departed to indicate I had no hard feelings. The incident was regrettable because it had caused the police to lose face. But the consequences of not resisting the police in their intention to make further arrests that morning would have been more regrettable. First, unresisted the aggression of the Acting Sergeant would have humiliated the protestors whom I regarded as having given honorable service and making big sacrifice to be there defending the Earth and the clean water rights of future generations. Second if not resisted the Acting Sergeant would likely have treated environmental protestors with similar lack of respect and restraint on some future occasion. Third, further arrests would have been time wasting for the protestors and criminal justice system. True there were some in the camp who had breached their bail conditions by being there. But this has to be understood in the context of the bail conditions set on those arrested the previous Easter (no go within 5 km of the mine site) having been challenged in Court and knocked down and likewise the charges of entering enclosed lands having been challenged in the NSW Supreme Court and invalidated. In other words those arrested on 8 April on the same changes and with similar bail conditions as the previous year knew that the legality of it all was questionable. Furthermore they were creating no apparent harm by bending the bail conditions in their preparations to depart the vicinity. Only with great difficulty could they have arranged to pack and organise their transport without returning to the camp. At a farewell circle around the camp fire before the protestors departed, Wiradjuri elder Neville Williams addressed the young people and summed up the situation perfectly. "Now you know," he said. "For the past two hundred and seventeen years of European occupation of Wiradjuri land, this is how it has been: madman invading our camps and creating mayhem, police entering without invitation or respect, making arrests and making us refugees in our own country." Australia's black history made vivid, it was a lesson the young eco-warriors will never forget. Yours respectfully, Graeme Dunstan 21 June 2007 The road goes winding on.