No 2 Court

Mr. Richard NEVILLE,
38A, Palace Gardens, Terrace
London,
W.8.

In the Inner
London Area
and in the
Metropolitan
Police District

Information has this day been laid before me, the undersigned,
by Ronald KENT, Detective Constable,
of New Scotland Yard
that you, on or before day of 1st May, 1970 &
at 8th June, 1970
in the Area and District aforesaid, did
In the Metropolitan Police
District did publish an obscene article, namely a
magazine entitled 'OZ No. 28- School Kids Issue'.

Contrary to Section 2 of the Obscene Publications Act, 1959, as xxx Act, against the Peace, etc.

You are therefore hereby summoned to appear before the
Magistrates' Court
on Thursday the 1st day of October, 1970
at the hour of Two
in the afternoon to
answer to the said information.

29th
Dated the 28th day of July,

1970

M.C.A.2

SUMMONS

M.P.-65-75985/60M E63 (2)

Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate
Justice of the Peace for the Inner London Area.

The receipt of this summons should be acknowledged to the Clerk of the
Court forthwith on the tear-off slip below. Please sign and return this slip. The
correct postage, if the envelope is unsealed and no letter accompanies the
acknowledgment, is threepence.

AIRMAIL

38a Palace Gardens,
LONDON W8

4th January, 1971.

Dear Family,

Please don't be alarmed by any of the news reports which may have been relayed to you. Let me tell you the story so far. As you know, the School kids Oz is being prosecuted under basically the same Act that ineffectually attempted to curtail Australian Oz. The policeman in charge of the case is one, Frederick Luff, who like such notables as Enoch Powell, Mary Whitehouse, Franco, Foreter, etc., is a religious crank and will use any method to eradicate a point of view with which he does not concur. This man obtained a warrant to enter my house under the technicality that subsequent "Ozes" had advertised for sale the School kids issue, and he brought along the drug squad people for good measure. Not surprisingly, seeing Cannabis is as common in most people's homes now as beer is in a pub, they found a tiny lump of evil resin in Louise's handbag. Both of us were arrested and taken to Court the following morning, a Saturday. The Magistrate is a famous London version of Locke, S.M. (see Observer, December 20), and refused bail despite the fact that several wellknown people were in Court prepared to put forward a total of a Quarter of a Million Pounds -- hence the publicity. Anyway, the case was considered so outrageous that a Judge in Chambers was raised on a Sunday, who of course immediately granted bail, and so now with Louise I will shortly be defending myself against the charge of possessing dangerous drugs, and if convicted will be fined.

So what with an impending drugs case and an obscenity trial, I am afraid you will all be confronted with unsavoury paragraphs concerning what must seem like my decline and fall; Richard, little by little.

Louise's mother has already characteristically penned a helpful note advising that "it is not too late to start a new life".

Now is not the time for a political lecture, but please accept that I am seriously dedicated to the adventure of forging and alternative lifestyle and culture, because I believe that the one we were born into is totally corrupt and committed to the impoverishment, exploitation and -- yes -- the obscene depravation of a vast section of the human race. The very people who are shocked by my involvement in putting an end to sexual repression would be delighted if I joined my Christian brothers in laying waste the villages of peasants in Asia. But Vietnam is only the most obvious and vivid example of rampaging neo Colonialism (did you know, for instance, that in the last ten years, life for the majority of people in Latin America and Africa has actually got worse?).

- 2 -

And as for the question of what is traditionally regarded as obscenity, it is interesting to reflect that a recently 17 man commission appointed by the U.S. Congress to examine the whole affair, that is, 17 square establishment, button down, jet setting, grey flannel lawyers, actually recommended after 700 pages of careful study that all such laws should be repealed. Just as in Denmark where the incidence of sexcrimes has substantially dropped since the abolition of obscenity, this starchy commission discovered -- after intensive research -- that sex offenders were usually distinguished from their fellow man in that they were markedly unfamiliar with erotic materials. I am sorry to sound so hysterical, but when I see the Australian press clippings, I realise how distressed you must feel, and I get angry that my really quite harmless (and hopefully helpful) activities should read like the Sunday Mirror.

Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone.

Richard Neville.