File Photo A gay man has made a Human Rights Commission complaint after being trespassed from a Wanganui swimming pool over allegations, which he vehemently denies, that he was watching children at the complex. The man, who we have agreed not to name, says he’d been using Wanganui Splash Centre for three years since he returned to the area - recovering from cancer and wanting to be near his elderly parents. “I don’t go every day. Maybe only two or three times a week, and only for a couple of hours each time.” He says he mostly used the spa and sauna, and explains there are no seats by the sauna and the closest seat after being in it is around the toddler’s pool. “I always thought, ‘I’ll just sit there, I’ll sit on the end. Obviously I never thought it was a problem, I did it for three years. If there were parents and children on the seat I wouldn’t sit there, or I would sit right on the end so I wasn’t near them. Not that I was any danger, I just didn’t want them to get the wrong impression.” The man believes things changed about three months before the ban, when a lifeguard started asking him questions, like “why are you always here alone?” and “why do you sit here?” He says he just wanted to be left alone to use the facilities but the lifeguard’s questions persisted and became what he felt was “homophobically inclined” such as “why do you wear make-up?” which he says he doesn’t. “One day she sat down beside during the school holidays and said ‘why don’t you go and play on the bouncy castle with all the kids?’ I said ‘no I don’t think that’s a very good idea, I’m too old! I’ll look silly!’ She said ‘oh no go and enjoy yourself, you never go anywhere except the spa and the sauna’ and I said ‘well that’s my business where I go’.” The man says the police turned up at his house in August and gave him a trespass notice, banning him from the Wanganui Splash Centre. When he asked why the officer said “there have been a couple of complaints about you sitting around the toddler’s pool and looking at the children.” He says he responded “well I am not interested at all in children, I just go there to use the sauna and spa. That’s the only seat that’s available a lot of the time.” He says they told him he had been watched on CCTV and his behaviour was deemed to have appeared suspicious. The man is adamant claims he was looking at or is interested in young children are “completely baseless” - “I am not a paedophile. Not at all. I have got no history of paedophilia.” He says he “looks gay” and “different” and can’t help but feel that is what led to the complaints about him and the trespass notice. The Splash Centre, Sport Wanganui and the local Council all say they did not initiate the trespass notice and have referred inquiries to the police. The police confirm a complaint about the man’s presence at the pool was made by a member of the public. However they have made it clear they do not initiate trespass notices, but only act as an agent to serve them on behalf of an organisation. The banned man says the trespass notice appears to have been signed by a Splash Centre manager, and another person whose signature is illegible. He is trying to get to the bottom of who initiated it and says the Human Rights Commission is looking into the case. His father has also gone into bat for him, complaining to the Council. He says even though it was the only spa and sauna in town he could afford, if there is a resolution in his favour he doesn’t want to go back to the centre. This is the second time he has been banned from a pool, in what he believes are similar “spurious” circumstances. The last time was in Wellington. He says while he felt it was unfair, he didn’t find anyone who would take up his case, which is why he has gone to the Human Rights Commission this time around. The man says since he came out, as Homosexual Law Reform was passed, and moved to Wellington to “escape and find the freedom of a big city”, he has faced homophobia. “I’ve been assaulted over the years, ended up in hospital. That was in Auckland … this is just the latest. I get it in shops. I get it with businesses. Over the whole country. “I am gay, openly gay, I look gay. I look like an Auckland gay guy or a Wellington gay guy. I’m not a Wanganui gay guy. I have to live here because my elderly parents live here and I really need to keep an eye on them. Otherwise I’d be up in Auckland. But you still get homophobia in Auckland too, I know because I lived there. It’s not the same as here. Here you can’t escape it.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 11th October 2014 - 9:23am