Hastings Countdown kidnapping trial: Woman denies abducting 87-year-old retiree

Maera Elizabeth Todd maintained her denials of charges that she and another person robbed and kidnapped David Geor (pictured). Photo / File

A 40-year-old woman has gone on trial in Napier District Court claiming she was not involved in the robbery and kidnapping of an 87-year-old retired businessman, despite Crown claims she used the man's bank card just 15 minutes later.

Appearing in the court on Monday, Maera Elizabeth Todd maintained her denials of charges that she and a person unknown robbed and kidnapped David Geor, relating to the attack which happened at the Countdown Hastings car park on the afternoon of July 28, 2018.

Todd also denies one charge of stealing from the Hastings branch of The Warehouse earlier on the same day.

She appears before Judge Bridget Mackintosh and a jury of seven women and five men, in a trial that was forecast to last less than two days.

Countdown Hastings supermarket, outside which a woman in court is alleged to have kidnapped an 87-year-old man 18 months ago. Photo / File

Crown prosecutor Megan Mitchell said told the jury she would call three witnesses, and other evidence would include a statement by victim David Geor, CCTV footage from The Warehouse and a video recording of a police interview with the defendant.

Defence counsel Eric Forster elected not to make an opening statement.

Mitchell said the key issue for the jury would be whether Todd was identified as one of the two offenders.

A woman the Crown says was Todd, wearing distinctive grey-bottomed track pants, was pictured on CCTV during the taking of items on the morning of July 28, and a woman similarly-dressed was pictured in further images from an ATM at which Geor's card was used soon after he was forced head-first into the rear footwell of his car.

Mitchell said that during the incident, a person held the victim down, put something to his back, told him to be quiet because the assailant did not want to shoot him, and ordered to reveal his card's PIN.

After a short drive, including one stop, the car taken by the assailants was parked back near the supermarket, Mitchell said. The offenders fled and Geor managed to extricate himself from his car and raise the alarm at a nearby shop.

Mitchell said a fingerprint from Todd was found on the car and when police first spoke with her she claimed to have been at Te Hauke at the time the incident happened and had been given the card by someone else.

The prosecutor said the use of the card was just after 15 minutes after Geor left the supermarket, not enough time to have received the card if she had been at Te Hauke, as she claimed.

The trial continues.