Woman denies quake looting charges

File photo / NZ Herald

A 51-year-old woman plans to defend charges of looting in the aftermath of last month's devastating Christchurch earthquake.

Louise Patricia Cooper, unemployed, remains in custody after entering the pleas in the Christchurch District Court today.

She denies an earlier charge of wilful damage and being found unlawfully in a building, and then charges of being found unlawfully in a yard and burglary of a damaged house in Armagh Street, Linwood, 12 days after the quake.

Defence counsel Paul Bradford said Cooper's own house had been destroyed in the earthquake and she had nowhere to go. Judge Emma Smith remanded her to October 20 for a bail application to be made.

- NZPA