NSW: Bride ridiculed after her inclusion in bikie expose

AAP General News (Australia)
12-03-2001
NSW: Bride ridiculed after her inclusion in bikie expose

By Graeme Webber

SYDNEY, Dec 3 AAP - A newlywed woman was taunted by workmates and strangers when a
television station mixed video footage of her wedding with an expose about crime-ridden
bikie gangs, a Sydney court was told today.

The marriage of Kellie and Glen Jackson, a Rebels motorcycle club member, was featured
in Channel Nine's Weddings program which aired over two nights late in 1995.

The bride said she had been assured by a Weddings producer that "we want to make Australia
love you".

The lifestyle program showed the Jacksons and eight other members of the Rebels club
cruising down a country road on Harley Davidsons.

But Mrs Jackson said she was horrified when, on New Year's Day the following year,
Channel Nine's A Current Affair (ACA) used the same footage to illustrate an unrelated
story which detailed claims of murder, rape, drug trafficking, illegal arms and a looming
turf war among Australia's bikie gangs.

The ACA story included a secret witness who talked about a "one-way fishing trip" when
bikie gang members bound a man and dragged him behind a half-cabin cruiser until his remains
were mauled and consumed by sharks.

A Supreme Court jury found in May this year that Mrs Jackson and the eight other bikers
depicted by Channel Nine had been defamed and today's hearing before Justice Michael Adams
was to determine damages.

Mrs Jackson, 30, from Penrith in Sydney's west, today told the court she was hysterical
when she saw herself, her husband and other friends and family members included in the
bikie gang story.

"I just felt ashamed because I realised there are people outside my loungeroom that
saw it," Mrs Jackson said.

"I thought it said I was a low-life, the people on that program were foul, I mean they
had thugs and murderers and they talked about rape."

Mrs Jackson was alerted the story was going to air by a friend who saw Channel Nine's
promotion for the ACA story which aired 44 times and contained the bike ride from Weddings.

She contacted Channel Nine and tried to have it pulled off air, but the station refused.

Mrs Jackson said Channel Nine again used the footage in another story about bikie gang
crime on July 2, 1996, and she thought the humiliation would never stop.

She tearfully told the court how workmates and strangers on the street hurled abuse at her.

On one occasion, three women approached Mrs Jackson in a shopping centre and asked
"do you have to sleep with them all to be in the club".

Mrs Jackson said she and other family members were assured by the producer of Weddings
that the footage would not be used for any other purpose.

The hearing continues.

AAP gmw/arb/pw/de

KEYWORD: JACKSON

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