A Swansea couple who organised for a custom decal on their boat depicting Nazi symbols said the professionally made decorative wrap was a pun and intended to be funny.
Jake Dearie, 33, and his partner, Ashleigh Wilkins, 34, appeared in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to causing a prohibited Nazi symbol to be displayed in a public place over the boat parked in Albert Street in December last year.
The decorations included the words "Jew slayer" and an image of Adolf Hitler shouting "Get Das Jews".
"A little controversial and I'm sure we'll get some looks, but f--- 'em," Wilkins messaged the boat wrapping business.
"It's the pun of the century."
Police were first notified about the boat on December 6 last year, but Dearie wasn't arrested until December 16, two days after an anti-Semitic terrorist attack and mass shooting at Bondi Beach targeted a community Hanukkah celebration.
He was refused bail the next day.
Commonwealth prosecutors argued the depictions on the boat were "more than controversial" especially in the "circumstances of what has happened in the past few days".
Despite repeated attempts to be released on bail, Dearie has spent the past eight months in jail.
He was the first person charged in the Hunter as part of a crackdown on people displaying Nazi symbols in public following the attack.
Wilkins owns the boat, but it is registered in Dearie's name.
Wilkins arranged for a business to wrap the boat with the custom decal between December 1 and 4 last year, according to court documents.
On December 6, someone took a photograph of the boat parked outside the couple's house in Swansea and reported it to police.
Both sides of the vessel were covered in a wrap depicting Hitler shouting "Get Das Jews", with numerous reversed swastikas on flags and the words "Jew slayer" on each side.
A number of mulloway, commonly referred to as "jewfish", are seen swimming away from Hitler in the image and the boat has a large reversed swastika up near the bow.
Police went to the house that day and saw the boat parked on the roadway, partially covered by a tarp.
They went back the next day and spoke to Wilkins, who agreed to move the boat off the road.
Wilkins said "that's ours", in relation to the boat and said it was not a swastika on the front.
"We actually asked police the other day if it was illegal... it's a jewfish, it's like a pun," Wilkins told police.
Wilkins said she knew someone would complain.
"Originally it was a swastika on the original one and we were like, no, we got it all switched around," she said.
Police left without charging anyone.
But on December 16, after the tragic Bondi Beach terrorist attack, police went back to Albert Street and searched the house.
Wilkins agreed people could find the decal "offensive", but said it was intended to be "funny".
Police observed a number of messages on Wilkins' phone, where she arranged the wrap with the business and went through the details of what the couple wanted.
After initially asking for the swastika to be "fully visible up the front", Wilkins said she had shown the proposed design to a mate and was now concerned about the legality of depicting Nazi symbols.
"I've just Googled it and the dogs have made it a crime to show the symbol ffs, just proves how the Jews are in control," Wilkins wrote, according to an agreed statement of facts.
She then asked the business to reverse the symbol so it looked like the "Buddhist symbol".
"It's not like we care but I don't want to be getting fined and having to deal with getting targeted by the cops on the water over it," she said.
"So yeah flip it... because when they are too busy worrying about the rest of the image to notice it isn't a swastika then we can tell them exactly what's what lol."
But as prosecutors point out in court documents, a prohibited symbol is a swastika or something "that so nearly resembles a Nazi swastika that it is likely to be confused with or mistaken for that thing".
Dearie was arrested when he went to report on bail later that day and Wilkins was charged in January.
The pair will next appear in Newcastle District Court next month to get a sentence date.
