T-shirt case doesn’t wash
SIX detectives arrested a man having a birthday beer in Burleigh Heads because he was wearing what police thought was a gang-related T-shirt.
On Friday, the Southport Magistrates Court noted some of the symbols on Joshua Maurice Tobin’s T-shirt represented hate groups, including Nazis, but cleared him because they are not illegal or related the Mongols bike gang.
Tobin had pleaded not guilty to wearing a prohibited item.
It was alleged he was wearing a Mongols related T-shirt when he had a beer at Rick Shores in Burleigh Heads on September 8 last year.
The T-shirt had two sshaped lightning bolts on the front. The back of the black shirt featured a large, white diamond that had a skyline and the number 13 inside.
Six detectives came to arrest him that day, according to his lawyer.
In her decision, Magistrate Louisa Pink said it was clear the diamond and the number 13 were of “special relevance” to the Mongols.
She said there was also a possibility that a member of the public would combine a diamond and 13 on a shirt.
“I note the usage of the ‘s’ symbol/s historically in Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) insignia and more recently as a symbol for various hate groups,” she said.
“Adding the ‘s’ symbol which are associated with hate, which is not illegal, does not in my view point to a connection with the Mongols because the symbols are not used only by the Mongols but are used as symbols of hate speech by other groups.”
The court was told the Mongols use the ‘s’ symbol in patches to replace a regular s, in tattoos and when writing ‘RFKNSIDE’ which means “our f***ing side”.
During a hearing in May, Queensland Police bikie gang expert Detective Sergeant Dominic Boland said he understood that only full members of the Mongols were permitted to obtain a tattoo of the diamond.
Magistrate Pink noted in her decision: “There is evidence that Mr Tobin has a visible tattoo of a 13 in a diamond, however, the offence provision does not make such tattoos illegal …”
It was not alleged in court if Tobin was a member of the gang.
Magistrate Pink ruled there was a “reasonable possibility consistent with innocence that the combination of symbols of Mr Tobin’s shirt had another meaning or no meaning”.
She found him not guilty. Outside court, Tobin’s lawyer Michael Gatenby, of Gatenby Criminal Lawyers, said it was another instance of the “bikie laws” being misapplied.
“Mr Tobin’s T-shirt was so inoffensive and ambiguous that police had to produce an expert witness to persuade the court that one or more symbols were unlawful,” he said.
“The Queensland public should be alarmed that six detectives from the specialist bikie busting taskforce felt empowered to arrest a man, having a ... birthday beer with his girlfriend, for wearing a T-shirt.”