Aussie protester charged with ‘mooning’ Queen

BRITAIN’S Queen Elizabeth II was met with rapturous scenes — and a flasher — in the Australian city of Brisbane where she praised its recovery from devastating floods.

Police charged a man with public nuisance and willful exposure after he “mooned” the Queen and ran 50 metres with an Australian flag between the cheeks of his bare backside. Liam Warriner from Sydney was released on bail and is expected at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday.

Speaking afterwards, the 22-year-old said he was unloading shipping containers when his workmates dared him to do it.

“I mooned the Queen,” he said. “Everybody’s seen someone’s butt, come on. You see it on TV all the time, you see it in movies, it’s accepted in PG-rated programming these days, but yet it’s an offence to the Queen.”

He was adamant his genitals were not visible to anyone. “Not the front at all. There were loads of people there to see the Queen. I wouldn’t want all of them seeing (that),” he said.

Tens of thousands of well-wishers packed the banks of the Brisbane River, engorged just nine months ago with floodwaters that submerged 30,000 homes in Australia’s third-largest city, to catch a glimpse of the Queen.

Wearing a pistachio-coloured dress and hat, the 85-year-old monarch smiled and shook hands with those among the thousands of fans who stood for hours in the searing spring sunshine for a chance to see her. She also attended a private function with disaster victims and rescue workers.