'Violence and terror': Auckland police officer on trial for family violence charges

A police officer is on trial at Auckland District Court for a string of assault and child cruelty charges. Photo / File

Warning: Disturbing content

A police officer accused of family violence and child cruelty allegedly called a young boy "sick" and a "pervert" for watching his mother, the officer's wife at the time, breastfeed.

The officer also allegedly forced his former stepson to say he was having sex with his cat, one incident in a string of allegations that led to a child cruelty charge.

The man's ex-wife is giving evidence at his trial at Auckland District Court.

The police officer denies seven charges relating to alleged violence against his ex-wife, stepson and nephew over a seven-year period.

"He had never really accepted [my son] as part of the family and he was quite jealous [he] was watching me breastfeed.

"He told him he was sick and a pevert and he needed to be talked to about that."

The man used "extreme force" to pull her son's ears and pinch his knees, she claimed.

"He just took it. He was only a small boy," she said.

He allegedly kicked his ex-wife and on another occasion grabbed her by her hair and dragged her to the bathroom and started filling up the bath.

During this alleged altercation his nail sliced her nose.

"Blood was everywhere, all over my face," she told the jury.

"Because he had put the plug in the bath and attempted to fill the bath, I think his intentions were to drown me.

"At one point I thought, this was it I'm going to die."

He is accused of assaulting his nephew in the back of a police car so severely he became dazed and "collapsed on the floor" when he was dropped home.

The man was allegedly heard bragging about giving his nephew "a hiding".

His nephew had run away from home and he, while off duty, went looking for him with another officer, the court heard.

A jury trial for the police officer has begun at Auckland District Court. Photo / File

"He had a dark, unpredictable mood," said Crown prosecutor Jo Murdoch.

"He was cruel not only to [his ex-wife] but to her young son who became the defendant's stepson in those formative years.

"He was overbearing and violent to his nephew, who at a young age began to have run-ins with the law."

The officer "inflicted violence and terror" on his family at the time, Murdoch alleges.

His ex-wife made complaints to police in 2009 but no charges were laid then. She raised them again in 2017.

Defence counsel Mark Ryan suggests his client's ex-wife only flagged her 2009 formal complaints in 2017 because she was going through a custody battle with the defendant over their son.

"The old tit-for-tat regime and [she] goes back to police and says: 'I need to reignite these complaints from years ago'.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Ryan told jurors New Zealand has a "terrible history record of domestic violence" but that shouldn't mean they "automatically" find him guilty.

Ryan said it was "flawed thinking" to assume the male is always the aggressor.

"He has consistently denied being the aggressor ... in a volatile relationship," said Ryan.

The police officer and all complainants have name suppression.

The officer denies two counts of injuring with intent to injure, three counts of assaulting with intent to injure, one count of injuring with reckless disregard and one count of child cruelty.

The trial is set down for three weeks before Judge Pippa Sinclair.

Where to go for help or more information

• Women's Refuge: Free national crisis line operates 24/7 - 0800 REFUGE or 0800 733 843

• Shine, free national helpline 9am- 11pm every day - 0508 744 633

• It's Not OK: Information line 0800 456 450 www.areyouok.org.nz

• Shakti: Providing specialist cultural services for African, Asian and Middle Eastern women and their children. Crisis line 24/7 0800 742 584

• Ministry of Justice: www.justice.govt.nz/family-justice/domestic-violence

• National Network of Stopping Violence: www.nnsvs.org.nz

• White Ribbon: Aiming to eliminate men's violence towards women www.whiteribbon.org.nz

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