Memories of a political prisoner, Pentridge Gaol 1972, Barry York recorded 1992, part 1 'Captured'

This year marks the 50th annviersary of one of Australia's most significant free speech struggles. In 1972, three student activists at La Trobe University, Fergus Robinson, Brian Pola and Barry York, were imprisoned without trial or sentence, without rights to bail or appeal, at Pentridge Prison. Their 'crime' was to enter the premises of La Trobe University in defiance of a Supreme Court injunction banning them from the campus: contempt of court.

The University authorities deemed them leaders of a militant student movement which over the previous two years had stood up to police violence and won the right to march along a local street in protest against the US war in Vietnam and then in 1971 had launched a successful struggle against the University Chancellor, whose company had government contracts for the war and also had investments in South Africa under the apartheid system.

La Trobe students were expelled (suspended) and fined by the university and arrested by police. The struggle continued into 1972 when the University Council tried to stop the Students Representative Council from using its funds to pay the fines of students.

In order to thwart this struggle, the University Vice Chancellor and Council obtained injunctions against the three abovenamed students and a fourth, Rodney Taylor (who was never captured). It was extraordinary to have activists gaoled without sentence in a maximum security prison: ie, for an indeterminate period.

The injuctions simply banned them from the campus. It did not prohibit them from specific activities. It was clearly an attack on free speech. The authorities had lost the debate of ideas and resorted to the organised violence of the police and prisons.

I refer to the student who almost certainly worked with police on the day of my arrest to secure my capture. In 1992 when I recorded the monologue, I was very careful as I didn't want to be sued. I could have said much more about that person. For one thing, I didn't mention that he was in my car with me when I was captured. (His first name ends with an 'n' and his surname ends with an 'h').

I shall do further clips drawing on excerpts from my 1992 monologue for the National Library of Australia. I also recorded Fergus and Brian for their memories of Pentridge and their interviews are also held in the Library's Oral History collection.

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