(continued) On the day of the hearing, the barrister advised us that if we pleaded guilty, he would make a plea for the case to be unrecorded, which would mean that we would have no criminal record. When I protested that I had done nothing wrong, he simply told me that if I didn't want a record, I should take his advice. We did. The whole hearing took about 5 minutes, & went exactly as we had been told it would.

We then went to E. Sydney Police Station, where we handed in our bail receipts. The cop returned after a long wait, looked at us, & asked if we wanted something. "Oh, I don't know where that is," he said. We left, bought some cheap plonk, and got smashed.

The point of my telling this (true) story is to show that this highly credible Human & Civil Rights organisation did 'behind the scenes' deals with the corrupt police. No bribe was given, although the cops did gain - at certain times each year the police needed convictions for their internal statistics, to show they were doing something. They picked on subjects who looked as though they would make easy convictions, so they could get back to their 'real' work of stand-over rackets, bribes from prostitutes, rake-offs from gambling dens, etc. This was an entirely pragmatic approach by Civil Liberties. It ensured that there was as little damage to the victim as possible, & it went along with the cops' desire to save face.

However, that sort of work and the occasional demonstration, was only the tip of the iceberg, as far as Civil Liberties was concerned. There were members, including lawyers, academics & public servants, conducting campaigns by lobbying, publicising, etc., behind the scenes all the time. And there still are, I believe. If the Council of Civil Liberties had supplied us with a Portia, she might have made loud & impressive speeches that made an interesting dinner conversation topic for HR-support psueds, hit the press even, but I would have had a record - because her eloquence would have had no effect at all on the outcome of this perpetration of injustice. My reputation would have been ruined & my freedom limited in several important ways.