Silly Eddie can swear until he’s blue in the face – profanity doesn’t bother me. Stefanovic may well agree. In 2011 when the Victorian government introduced on-the-spot fines for offensive language, he tweeted: "Just [heard] the government wants to fine people for swearing. That's bullshit." Just as well the celebrity chums didn’t drop a few choice words at 4am in Kings Cross in front of an unamused police officer. Even if there was no one else to hear them, with an improved legal weapon provided by former premier Barry O’Farrell’s summer assault on “alcohol fuelled violence”, the fine for incendiary language is $500. If they’d responded WTF? Stefanovic and McGuire may have been arrested. If they didn't go quietly? Tasered. Funnier things have happened.

The charge of offensive language is the “perfect verbal” says barrister Simon Priestley who has spent about 26 years specialising in family and criminal law in Port Macquarie and the northern rivers area. It’s a region of NSW that has high youth unemployment and a large Indigenous population – both statistically over-represented in local magistrates’ courts. “In my experience, almost all police officers are decent, but there is, like in any group, a significant number who have power and control issues,” Priestley said this week. “Even the decent coppers get cranky with the smart-mouthed kids – they have no patience left for them and, because swearing is so common, it’s a simple way of exerting power.” Last year, NSW police laid more than 5000 charges for offensive language, and issued a similar or larger number of “on-the-spot” fines according to a recently published article from University of Wollongong's school of law.

What’s the worst that can happen when you swear in the street within the hearing of police? You don’t have to be a smart-mouthed kid to find out. In a case which made the front page of the Northern Star newspaper a few weeks ago, a 53-year-old Queensland grandmother – who had no criminal record – ended up with a payout of $150,000 from the state of NSW for false arrest, wrongful imprisonment, assault, injury and malicious prosecution by police. Priestley represented Suzanne Farley in court and said the incident began with an incredulous WTF and ended with tasers. As he said: “The last alternative to being shot.” One evening in 2010, in the sleepy coastal hamlet of Evans Head, Farley and her then partner Graeme Cooke, were dining with friends and family at the Illawong Hotel.

As they made their way to a taxi rank, Cooke, on spotting three police, struck up an ill-advised conversation - the details of which were in dispute but began with Cooke saying: “It’s the f---ing S.W.A.T.” The situation then escalated when an officer replied: “Say that again and I will arrest you for swearing.” Cooke asserts he said: “You’ve got to be kidding.” Farley stepped in and (to quote the Northern Herald) was thrown to the ground and handcuffed. “She was alarmed because he (Cooke) had a heart condition,” said Priestley. The words quoted in subsequent court documents: “Comply, comply or you will be tasered!” and “My heart, my heart!” make for difficult reading.

In her statement to the court, Farley claimed one of the officers said: “You are nothing but a slag anyway.” Coming to his partner’s aid, Cooke was then tackled to the ground by two officers, capsicum sprayed and tasered several times. Both were taken to Lismore police station and charged with the “trifecta” or “holy trinity”, as the lawyers call it, of offensive language, resisting arrest and assaulting police. Priestley said: “The question has been seriously put to police in court in the past, ‘you weren’t going to shoot him for swearing, were you?'" After having the charges thrown out, both sued the state. Cooke settled out of court, but Ms. Farley pursued civil charges against the state of NSW, citing “humiliation, embarrassment, loss of dignity, emotional stress, feelings of intimidation and coercion”.

Cooke settled his case and, on March 11 this year, judge Michael Elkaim found in Farley’s favour – awarding $150,000 in compensation and legal fees. Her solicitor said she was “pleased to be able to get on with her life” after a four-year battle. Priestley was blunt: “She’s unable to do her gardening, can’t lift her grandchildren and has panic attacks every day.” What constitutes offensive language is tested against a judgment handed down before I was born. The case of Worcester v Smith [1951] VLR 316 states that offensive language must be “such as is calculated to wound the feelings, arouse anger or resentment or disgust or outrage in the mind of a reasonable person”. These days what offends “community standards”, the forbidden words and what constitutes a “public place” are all vague notions. Who now is that “reasonable person” who is disgusted and outraged? He was once said to be the “the man on the bus”.

Did he make in home in time to watch Fox Sports, I wonder? Wendy Harmer is the editor in chief of The Hoopla. thehoopla.com.au