CV. Tell us in your own words Bernie what happened to lead to your arrest?

BB. On the long weekend in Canberra, 2003 we hold the traditional fireworks night up here and this was meant to be the first year where there were no crackers going off. My action was meant to be aimed at banning the display type crackers - the noisy and dangerous ones -for good.

Many groups had been pushing to get rid of these fireworks.  Year 2003 was supposed to be the end of them yet it turned out to be the noisiest year that anyone can ever remember because there was just huge bangers going off. They started a good month before the long weekend and this was every night.  It continued through until about 2 months after the long weekend.

My dog Rahee, a German Shepherd, was absolutely petrified.  I became a prisoner in my own home because I couldn't go anywhere as I couldn't risk leaving her. One night I had to leave her for about half an hour and when I came home she had absolutely destroyed the house in panic. She had ripped the walls apart and all the cupboards apart. The house was flooded from one end to the other just from her sheer terror. She had just began working on getting away out the front door when I arrived home. If she had gotten out, I guarantee you she probably would have been killed.

I have lived on my road now for over 12 years and for at least 8 of those years I have picked up dead animals off that road -  cats, dogs,  possums - on that particular long weekend. And that's just one road in Canberra.

CV. What then did you decide to do about it?

BB. 2004 long weekend was fast approaching and I thought to myself, "I can't go through this again". We've tried everything. We've tried protests, letter writing campaigns, petitions. Many different organisations down here have tried to get firecrackers banned to no avail. This was getting us no where so I decided with Simone Grey, the President of Animal Liberation ACT to do a sting operation as the newspaper the Canberra Times were interested in the story as well.

I picked up the first fireworks phone number in the Yellow Pages and dialed them up and phoned them. I said to the man, "I'd like to buy some crackers" and he said "Yep. Sure. What do you want?" He said he had a nice $150.00 bag full worth of mixed crackers and also he had something called Bungers as well. The next morning we arranged that I would come to him and purchase them with the Canberra Times reporter and photographer across the road in the car park. They watched the whole transaction and took some fantastic photos of Harold Upton, the man who sold them to me. He has been the spokesperson for the Fireworks Industry in Canberra for many years. His angle was if you ban crackers then they will go underground. This was the same guy selling me Bungers - no questions asked at all. When he sold them to me he said, "Be careful with these ones. They'll take your hand off".  He was talking about another cracker also called a 'Widow-Maker'.

I then met up with the Canberra Times people down the road and gave them an interview. Straight from there we went to Work Cover, made an appointment with them and told them what I had done. I said this guy is selling these firecrackers illegally. These are not your normal fireworks by the way. They are the dangerous ones. Work Cover were absolutely wrapped that I had done this because they reckoned that they had been trying to close this man down for a few years. They said that they would suppress my name and wanted me to give evidence against Harold Upton to stop him from renewing his licence thereby putting him out of business.

After all of that, they turned around and charged me for purchasing them.

CV. Yesterday you won your court case against them. How did you win it?

BB. This went to the Supreme Court with a full jury - can you believe that?  Justice Terrence Higgins was not impressed that the case had come to court at all. In his opinion, what I was doing was in the publics' interest. He said more or less that to prosecute people like me is ridiculous because it will stop people from fighting against injustice in the future.

CV. Why did they prosecute you in the first place? I think something political is going on here.

BB. There is but I have to be very careful on what I say. Katie Gallagar is the Minister responsible for Industrial Relations and she's the Minister responsible for Work Cover. It was her legislation that she put in place about the fireworks. It was supposed to ban the dangerous ones.

90% of Canberra people want these things banned. Her electorate is Fyshwick and this is where all the firework shops are. For some reason she decided to go against the public majority. Because I showed them up by proving that this first piece of legislation wasn't working, her comments in the paper were that she wanted me charged for purchasing them.

CV. So this was all a political move.

BB. Yes.

CV. And of course Justice Higgins agreed with you in court then backed you up.

BB. Before the Prosecution had gotten their witnesses through Justice Higgins said, "Look! Have you got any witnesses that can add anything to this because Mr Brennan has already agreed that he had acted illegally in purchasing these firecrackers?"

He more or less put the pressure on them to deliver and at lunch time he said to them he wanted them to go away and think about what this prosecution is all about. That was very encouraging to hear him ask the DPP to go away and rethink their position.

When lunch was over and the jury came back Justice Higgins thanked the Prosecution for stopping their case and he found me 'Not Guilty'. He then spoke about how the world needs people like me to do these sort of things because if you didn't work undercover, nothing would ever get done.