Schoolkids OZ was issue 28 of the Oz

Oz (magazine)

Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...

magazine, famous for being the subject of a high-profile obscenity

Obscenity

An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...

 case in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in June 1971. The OZ trial ended on 5 August 1971.

History

The trial of OZ editors Richard Neville

Richard Neville (writer)

Richard Neville is an Australian author and self-described "futurist", who came to fame as a co-editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s...

, Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis

Felix Dennis is a British magazine publisher, poet, and philanthropist. His privately owned company, Dennis Publishing, pioneered computer and hobbyist magazine publishing in the United Kingdom...

, and Jim Anderson

Jim Anderson (editor)

Jim Anderson edited Oz Magazine and later wrote the book Billarooby.Jim Anderson was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, but his family emigrated to Australia when he was a year old. This was due to his father having a dispute with his own father with whom he never reconciled...

, for issue 28,Schoolkids OZ, was conducted at the Old Bailey

Old Bailey

The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

, under the auspices of Judge Michael Argyle

Michael Argyle (lawyer)

His Honour James Morton Michael Victor Argyle QC MC was a judge at the Central Criminal Court of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1988...

. It was the longest trial under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act

Obscene Publications Act 1959

The Obscene Publications Act 1959 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom Parliament that significantly reformed the law related to obscenity. Prior to the passage of the Act, the law on publishing obscene materials was governed by the common law case of R v Hicklin, which had no exceptions...

. Of particular significance is the now-notorious Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb

Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...

 pastiche

Pastiche

A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

 cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 of Rupert Bear

Rupert Bear

Rupert Bear is a children's comic strip character, who features in a series of books based around his adventures. The character was created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appeared in the Daily Express on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival...

 in an explicitly sexual situation.

The defence lawyer was John Mortimer

John Mortimer

Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...

, the author of the television series Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer which starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an ageing London barrister who defends any and all clients...

and many successful stage plays. He was assisted by Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC is an Australian-born human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship....

, later to become a prominent barrister, author, and occasional broadcaster. Robertson later wrote a play about the trial, which was produced as a television drama by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.

The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to up to 15 months imprisonment. This was later quashed on appeal by the lord chief justice Lord Widgery. It was alleged by Geoffrey Robertson that Widgery sent his clerk to Soho one lunchtime to buy £20 worth of the hardest porn he could find. The contents of even the Schoolkids issue of Oz paled in comparison.

In her Oz Trial Post-Mortem, which was not published until it was included in "The Madwoman’s Underclothes" (1986), the erstwhile contributor Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....

 made the following salient points:

"Before repressive tolerance

Repressive Tolerance

Repressive Tolerance is the title of a 1965 essay by Herbert Marcuse. In the essay, Marcuse, a Marxist and social theorist, argues that "pure tolerance" favors the political right and "the tyranny of the majority"....

 became a tactic of the past, Oz could fool itself and its readers that, for some people at least, the alternative society already existed. Instead of developing a political analysis of the state we live in, instead of undertaking the patient and unsparing job of education which must precede even a pre-revolutionary situation, Oz behaved as though the revolution had already happened."

The trial was satirized in the BBC comedy series Hippies

Hippies (TV series)

Hippies is a six-part British television comedy series broadcast from 12 November to 17 December 1999. It was created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, the writing partnership most famous for Father Ted, but the scripts were written by Mathews alone.It starred Simon Pegg, Sally Phillips, Julian...

episode "Disgusting Hippies"