The accused officer, who has interim name suppression, is on trial in the Auckland District Court. Photo / File
The accused officer, who has interim name suppression, is on trial in the Auckland District Court. Photo / File
A police officer changed his story about the night one of his colleagues was allegedly raped by another workmate after receiving notice about an employment investigation into his behaviour.
The constable, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was one of several deployed to help police patrol Waitangi Day events at the Treaty Grounds last year.
He continued to give evidence today at the trial of a fellow police officer accused of indecently assaulting and sexual violating his female workmate at a Kerikeri motel during the early hours of February 5.
The charged cop, who has interim name suppression, has been on trial for the past week in the Auckland District Court.
"Are you worried about your employment?" The accused's lawyer Paul Borich QC asked the constable, who was also staying at the motel.
"At the moment?" the junior officer replied. "A little bit, yep."
Yesterday, the constable said when he found the alleged victim after the second of the alleged incidents with her "back against the wall, legs up, head down and crying" in her motel room.
"I came inside and sat down on the bed and she looked up at me and she was pretty much crying hysterically. She told me she was sleeping and then she woke up to [the accused] ****ing her.
"I just told her, I said I was sorry, I didn't know what else to say. I didn't want to console her physically, I knew it wasn't a good idea ... just the circumstances of what had happened, it was pretty much a crime scene now."
However, he told the court he forgot to mention his interaction with the accused to investigating police later on that day but has recalled it "as time went by".
A second version of events was told to detectives nine days after the incident, but also just "10 minutes" after the constable received notice of an employment investigation into the night.
Borich suggested the officer felt pressure from senior police officers to change his story.
Paul Borich QC is defending the accused police officer. Photo / Doug Sherring
"Obviously you like your job as a policeman?" Borich asked, to which the constable agreed.
It said it would explore if aspects of this behaviour fell short of the police code of conduct.
CCTV footage from the night has also shown lewd behaviour by several officers at the motel, including a senior sergeant stripping and exposing himself in front of the beer-drinking group.
A drinking game was played by the officers where they chugged beers out of a hollowed-out police baton.
"Did that make you nervous getting that?" Borich asked the constable of the notice.
"He was saying, 'what am going to do? What am I going to do?"
The defendant, the constable now says, claimed he and the policewoman were "hooking up".
In his statement, the constable said the accused told him: "Something's happened with me and [the complainant]."
"He said that she was crying and really upset, I asked 'why was she crying?'" the statement reads.
"And he told me 'that they hooked up', and while they were doing it she stopped and crying told him she didn't want to do it anymore."
Earlier in the night, the constable told the court, some of the other officers at the motel noticed "something" between the accused and complainant and began teasing the defendant.
A sergeant staying at the motel also gave evidence today and recalled being woken up to someone knocking on his bedroom door.
As one of the ranking officers at the motel he was told the complainant was hysterical. He asked the accused a pointed question, "has anything else happened?"
"No, no, nothing like that," the sergeant said the accused replied.
The defendant went on to say: "I panicked and I tried to talk to her but she was upset with me."
The sergeant told the court the accused officer claimed he woke the complainant after being earlier invited into her room. But, he maintained "nothing happened".
When the sergeant went to talk to the complainant he could hear her sobbing as he entered the room.
"I was shocked by what she told me," he told the court.
The jury has also watched CCTV of the accused policeman "creeping" across the motel courtyard and into his alleged victim's bedroom. He can be seen slowly opening the unlocked door to the complainant's room at 2.34am.
The incident was one of two which allegedly occurred at the motel, the court has heard.
The accused also allegedly indecently assaulted the policewoman when the pair were together in one of the motel units earlier in the night.
The accused officer has been stood down from the police and a separate employment investigation will be conducted, Auckland's Detective Superintendent Dave Lynch has said.
An application to continue his interim name suppression was declined by Judge Evangelos Thomas but the decision has been appealed and suppression will continue until the challenge can be determined.
