Story by Hamish Broome •
A SELF proclaimed Byron Bay “druid” with “divine and limitless” jurisdiction has won a NSW Supreme Court appeal over a conviction for sending an offensive email to the licensees of a Byron Bay pub.
The 62-year-old Celtic high priest, known only as Ms Morgan, was convicted in the Tweed Heads Local Court in January 2014 for using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.
On August 12, 2013, Morgan sent an email to the owners of Byron Bay’s Rails Hotel protesting her purported “life ban” from the premises.
In it, she described a fictional scenario in which the recipients’ families might be tortured and killed, leaving them “alive to wonder whether or not it is really worth f**king over a person simply because you can”.
It further warned: “Never start a War without considering the possibility that, should you lose the War – all men will be killed; all women raped and enslaved; and all children butchered.”
In convicting Morgan, Magistrate David Heilpern described that part of the email as “calculated to wound the feelings” of its recipients.
In May 2014, Morgan appealed the conviction in the Lismore District Court but her appeal was dismissed and the conviction upheld.
Undeterred, Morgan escalated her appeal to the NSW Supreme Court.