Photographs Ruled Not Indecent (Press, 10 December 1969)
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Summary: Photographs Ruled Not Indecent (Press, 10 December 1969)
On 9 December 1969, the Upper Hutt Magistrate’s Court, presided over by Mr W. McAlevay, issued a reserved decision regarding the case against Harry Tetlow, 51, who faced charges of selling and possessing indecent photographs. The case was brought to court after a complaint from Patricia Bartlett, a 41-year-old schoolteacher, who had purchased photographs through an advertisement in the magazine "Informer." The advertisement offered “exclusive figure studies” at a price of $5 per set, leading Bartlett to receive 12 photographs featuring unclad and semi-clad females. In his ruling, Mr McAlevay determined that the photographs in question were not indecent. He noted that 11 of the photographs were acknowledged not to be indecent, and he concluded that the twelfth photograph also did not meet the criteria for indecency defined under the Indecent Publications Act. He explained that indecency entails depictions of sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence that are injurious to the public good. He added that the contested photograph was a straightforward depiction of a nude female who was not posing suggestively. During the proceedings, the notion of living in a “permissive society” was raised. Mr McAlevay dismissed this idea as meaningless and potentially dangerous, asserting that it should not imply that courts should allow immoral conduct, especially concerning the protection of children raised in contemporary society. Although he acknowledged that some of Tetlow’s photographs could be considered indecent, he indicated that the evidence presented was insufficient to convincingly demonstrate that these were for sale. Consequently, he lifted interim orders that had previously kept both Tetlow's and Bartlett's names confidential, and he declined the request for the destruction of the photographs.
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