Court hears government employee sent man picture defaced with drawings of penises

A parking ticket sparked harrassment, Dunedin District Court told. Photo / 123RF

A government employee accused of harassing a Dunedin business owner said he saved photos of the man's family on his computer because he was scared.

The Crown says the pictures police forensic analysts found on the man's laptop actually showed a warped interest in the complainant, which resulted in two-and a-half years of stalking.

The 39-year-old defendant, who has name suppression, is on trial before the Dunedin District Court accused of criminal harassment, threatening to cause grievous bodily harm and intentional damage.

The identities of the complainant and his sister are also suppressed.

The alleged abuse involved putting the complainant's details at a gay meeting place, creating a fake homosexual dating profile online using his photos and sending a sex toy to his workplace.

The prosecution case closed this morning and defence counsel Anne Stevens said her client would enter the witness box.

Two of the accused's former colleagues would give also evidence this week, she said.

The defendant and complainant had never met before June 14, 2012 when the former parked outside the businessman's workplace, blocking a rear entrance.

That saw the man's car ticketed and, at the start of this week, the complainant spoke about how the alleged harasser confronted him in an intimidating manner and vowed to get off the infringement.

The defendant had a different version of events, telling the court he went to the premises to apologise for the inconvenience he had caused.

"Are you here about that effing car?" the complainant allegedly asked before threatening to move it with a forklift.

The defendant said he parked the car slightly further down the road the following day to allow access, but still received the text message: "clever parking, dick head".

Around that time, he found his tyre had been deflated and there was a dent in his door, which led to him making a police complaint, the court heard.

"I started to panic about what was going to happen next," the government employee said.

On June 18, 2012, the defendant said he set about gathering information about the complainant, which involved him saving various photos he found online.

"I wanted to know: who was this guy and should I be worried about him?" he said. "I saved [the images] and more or less forgot about them."

The defendant told the court he had not contacted the defendant since the original incident.

One of the last examples of alleged harassment was in April, 2015, when the complainant was sent a photo of himself appearing in the Otago Daily Times and which had been defaced with pictures of penises.

The court heard when the defendant's work locker was searched by police there were similar lewd drawings.

The man said he had been "gifted" the artwork by a colleague.

The pair pranked each other, the man explained, and claimed to have put holes in his friend's drink bottle and filled shoes with expanding foam.

The defendant said the graffiti was nothing to do with the complainant, and was completely irrelevant to the case against him.

The trial, before Judge Paul Kellar without a jury, is scheduled to run until the end of this week.