He's a rebel, he's a guru, and he's a beatnik
I just really like that song
Covid-19 left me unable to smile after finally returning a negative test.
Apologies about the lack of newsletter last week, but I had a reason.
My family - all four of us - tested positive for Covid-19 last month. Sigh.
I had been feeling unwell a few days prior with flu-like symptoms.
It hit us all in various ways, but I can state categorically it wasn’t ‘some seasonal cold’ as I’ve heard some call it.
Apart from the usual flu-type symptoms - sore throat, runny nose, high temperature, fatigue - it was the dreaded ‘brain fog’ that impacted me most.
I still had it a week later, making me feel discombobulated, and I’ve only just come right.
By Sunday we all improved, and thankfully tested negative. Huzzah!
So, let’s get on with the news.
In some breaking news, Mayor Aaron Hawkins has confirmed the Dunedin City Council met with Police today to discuss next steps over the Octagon protest.
The council will be formally writing to the protesters tomorrow to advise them of the offences they are committing under the Reserves Act and our bylaws, he said in a statement.
‘‘The protesters will be given an opportunity to cease their offending and leave the Octagon. If they decline, we will then work through a process with Police to issue a trespass notice.’’
Remember that story about Cr Lee Vandervis and the parking ticket?
Well, I’ve got an update.
But first a recap.
The long-serving councillor was involved in a verbal spat with a staff member at the Dunedin City Council, after complaining about signage on a parking meter that led to him being issued with a $12 ticket in September 2019.
Lee Vandervis walks to the Dunedin court house prior to his judicial review. Photo: Hamish McNeilly
A complaint led to an investigation and then a written censure by his fellow councillors.
But it also led Vandervis applying for a judicial review from the High Court. When that was upheld, he went to the Court of Appeal.
That hearing was held last month, which I was able to hear remotely, and a decision has been reserved.
During that hearing it was confirmed by Vandervis’ counsel, Len Andersen QC, that he had never paid for the ticket.
That seems understandable, given the legal fight.
But I checked with the Dunedin City Council this week to see if anyone else had ever paid it.
And I got a hit.
“We can confirm the parking ticket was paid by an anonymous third party who sent the Dunedin City Council an envelope containing $12,” a council spokesman said.
“This payment was received on 31 January 2020.”
That payment comes two months after Vandervis, who was the highest polling councillor at the 2019 local body elections, was censured by his own council, following an investigation into the Code of Conduct complaint.
“The claim that I have tried to avoid a $12 parking ticket is ridiculous,” Vandervis told the council in December 2019.
If you know who sent the money for the ticket, hit me up at hamish.mcneilly@stuff.co.nz.
Meanwhile, Cr Vandervis emailed me to say: Somebody unknown to me apparently made the offer of payment of the inappropriate ticket on my behalf which the DCC advised me of, and which I refused, as payment was wholly inappropriate as I had more than paid for the time parked.
I specifically advised the DCC that no payment was to be made by any third party on my behalf as the ticket was an inappropriate result of a faulty parking meter.
As I have said publicly, the ticket was inappropriate, payment was never demanded of me and it was never paid.
Your on-going misrepresentation of the alleged but untrue ticket avoidance is noted.
They call themselves ‘outlawyers’, and it is easy to understand why.
Arthur Taylor is seeking $1.5 million in compensation over being held for 14 months in solitary confinement at Paremoremo.
The 65-year-old jailhouse lawyer is being assisted in the six-week-long civil case by his friend and landlord, Hazel Heal, in the case of Arthur William Taylor v the Attorney General.
But this is no ordinary case. It is being held remotely via Microsoft Teams, and is understood to be the first remote trial of its duration held in the country.
Taylor and Heal were based in Dunedin, Justice Andru Isac in the Wellington High Court, and the Crown represented by high profile firm Meredith Connell in Auckland.
“It is a real David v Goliath situation legally, so it is Arthur and I with no formal court experience versus one of the biggest law firms in the country,” Heal said.
That case, due to wrap-up in Wellington, relates to Taylor’s incarceration during 2011-2018, after he was jailed for drugs uncovered in a warehouse he had leased.
For Heal, who has a law degree and was admitted to the bar “but I am not a lawyer”, it was a dream assignment.
“It is an absolute dream to be an understudy to Arthur Taylor . . . he is incredibly good. No one else has the complete understanding of our whole legal system inside them.”
Heal had studied some of the cases involving Taylor when she studied at the University of Otago, including him overturning a smoking ban for prisoners, the right of prisoners to vote, and a high profile perjury case.
“What people don’t realise is that the conditions that every single prisoner in New Zealand is held under has been improved by Arthur’s constant holding them to their own regulations,” Heal said.
That had come at a cost to Taylor, who said he was more focused on law benefitting others “than my own bloody self”.
Heal had worked unpaid on the case, in stark contrast to the deep pockets of the Crown, who had spared no expense, she said.
The challenges included having 36 witnesses giving evidence remotely, and the pair paid tribute to the court registrar for the “magnificent job” in coordinating the hearing.
Compounding matters was the pair both being diagnosed with Covid-19 during the hearing, and having to not discuss matters during the nearly two weeks when Taylor took the stand.
Taylor, who has spent 38 years behind bars, could have had his bail conditions relaxed to attend a hearing in Wellington, but his vaccination status made that “impractical”.
Those matters made the trial “gruelling”, the pair said.
“We now know why they call them ‘trials’,” Taylor said.
But it was worth it, if it meant the Department of Corrections was held to account for not complying with the law on humanely treating prisoners, Taylor said.
“I firmly believe people react to how you treat them.”
Heal, as a “non practising late starter”, said she was proud to work alongside Taylor on such an important case.
“I want to serve justice, and that is why I have laid my life aside to do that, because I have a strong belief in right and wrong . . . and so does Arthur.”
As an aside, Taylor, who has his own website and fields questions on legal advice from all over the country, had been billed $95,000 for the court hearing costs alone.
“I haven’t paid,” he said.
A case to watch. Thanks to Arthur and Hazel for sharing.
This week was a big one for Mayor Aaron Hawkins, who confirmed he would again seek the mayoralty.
I tipped that he would be running a few weeks ago. Expect more announcements in the coming months.
As an aside, the t-shirt he is wearing is this guy:
If you want to go back to the future and look at some of Dunedin’s main shopping streets in 1987, I recommend this site. Incredible.
Tweet of the Week goes to this gem.
For my Dunedin song of the week, I have to include this blast from the past, which turns 40 in a few months.
Play. It. Loud.
He's a rebel, he's a guru, and he's a beatnik.
Indeed.
I don't understand how the 1980's - which was just a couple of years ago - looks so old fashioned. Weird.
Thanks for the link to the photos, some interesting info in there. I didn't realise Glasson's had been in the same store for so long. I want to assume that Hallenstein Glasson Holdings owns the building, but I should dig through the DCC to confirm.... Very close, Timothy Charles Glasson, founder of Glasson's and a non executive director on the board