He is described in this Stuff report as “a veteran protester” although Alf is more inclined to regard him as an ageing trouble-maker.
His name is Castislav “Sam” Bracanov and the silly old fart has been found guilty of throwing a bucket of watered-down horse manure over former ACT leader John Banks last year.
Actually, the charge was common assault.
As you will see further down, assaults on a commoner do not command the same sense of outrage as assaults on the royals or their motor vehicles.
The evidence that Bracanov did assault a commoner is not easy to refute, notwithstanding his not guilty plea. A video of the incident can be seen above.
Learning how to butt heads and come out the winner would be useful at Question Time.
Never thought it would be written here. But Trevor Mallard is a pussy cat.
Mallard – it might be remembered – escaped an assault charge when he was Minister for the Environment after an altercation with National MP Tau Henare by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of fighting in a public place.
But fair to say, Trev is thoroughly genteel when compared with Britain’s Eric Joyce, who recently was convicted of four counts of assault and – when asked to tally the number of people he has thumped over the years -reckons it’s probably 100.
Eric Joyce arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court.
Remember Trevor Mallard’s altercation with Tau Henare?
No, not the occasional verbal tiff in Parliament.
Alf refers to an altercation of the physical sort that resulted in Mallard being charged with assault.
He was Minister for the Environment at the time, the way Alf recalls it, and finished up pleading guilty to the lesser charge of fighting in a public place.
Alf wants to give a severe caning to the authorities in charge of the Southern Cross School in Mangere.
The buggers have gone soft and wimpy in their handling of a student who knocked a teacher unconscious during a lunch time break at the school.
The teacher was checking corridors at the Southern Cross School in Mangere when he was attacked.
The senior male student was suspended until the school’s board of trustees could discuss further action and consider if police were to be involved, the NZ Herald reported today.
Alf has alerted British authorities to his suspicions about the real identity of one of their best known police officers.
He refers, of course, to Inspector Frost, a gritty cop (and much admired by the British people) who did his crime-busting thing in Denton, in the British Midlands.
Alf suspects the real Inspector Frost is none other than a disgraced New Zealand member of Parliament, who landed his job as an MP not because he was popular with his electorate, but because the ACT Party saw fit to place him fairly high on its list.
The MP is known in this country as David Garrett, although Alf does not discount the possibility this might be an alias.
Unlike Inspector Frost, Garrett is a bloke who would have no show of winning votes in Eketahuna North, and – Alf wold venture – would be unlikely to attract votes anywhere else in this country if he stood for election in a constituency.
The presumption of innocence and its importance in a just and decent society is not as well understood or zealously championed as it should be.
Worse, some citizens who would deny others the presumption of innocence show deeper flaws. They make themselves candidates for deportation by wanting to weaken the All Black team.
This is tantamount to treason, and would be treason, if Alf had his say in definining this very serious offence against the state. Every self-respecting Kiwi should have a powerful urge to see the crap beaten out of the Springboks on the rugby field.
Any hint of this urge being diluted should disqualify people from citizenship.
Labour MP Shane Jones says John Key should intervene in a Far North land occupation before thousands attend a fishing competition at the end of the month.
Land at Taipa which is up for sale is being occupied by two brothers, John and Wikatana Popata, who assaulted the Prime Minister at Waitangi last year.
Alf has lots of sympathy for the 80-year-old bloke who believed he was following the Bible when he used an alkathene pipe to punish a child for stealing $1000 from him.
The man, who has interim named suppression, yesterday pleaded guilty in the New Plymouth District Court to two charges of assaulting a child and assault with a blunt instrument between November 1 and December 7.
When arrested, the man told police that he was frustrated by the child’s behaviour and had been “seeking to correct him in the manner described in the Bible”.
Alf notes with fascination the career paths chosen by Hone Harawira’s stroppy relatives, the two Far North brothers who assaulted Prime Minister John Key outside a marae in February.
According to the NZPA report of proceedings in Kaikohe District Court, the pair assaulted Key “in a rush of blood” because of their concern over land being confiscated from Maori.
But Judge John McDonald told John Junior Popata, 33, a researcher, and Wikatana Popata, 19, an interviewer, that violence in any form was not an acceptable way of protest under New Zealand law and it was serious because of who they had targeted.
Get that? A “researcher” and “an interviewer”?
It’s almost the stuff of a Tui ad.
But let’s be generous and suppose they are highly competent at researching, interviewing, or whatever, when the blood is not rushing to their heads.
They still should have been banged up because – as the judge said – roughing up the PM is not an acceptable way of protest, and “serious” becaue of who they targeted. They needed time in the cooler to let their blood settle. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Alf Grumble 
Alf Grumble 