Ex police officer acquitted

An ex-police officer accused of assaulting his former partner, the estranged wife of Rotorua principal Hawea Vercoe, has had all charges against him dismissed.
Michael George Appleton, 45, was defending charges of male assaults female, trespass and breach of a protection order during a hearing which concluded yesterday in the Rotorua District Court.
Mr Appleton was accused of ignoring pleas to leave former partner Karri-Ann Vercoe's home and grabbing her by the throat. The charges relate to incidents alleged to have occurred at a Rotorua address on August 16 last year.
In summing up, Judge Chris McGuire said an argument had started when Mr Appleton and Mrs Vercoe went on a walk.
"They split up and he went back to the complainant's house for a spa," Judge McGuire said.
"She had actually sent him a text to say 'Be gone by the time I get back' but he didn't read that text until she got home."
Mr Appleton had sent Mrs Vercoe a text in return saying, 'No, you... off.'
"That's an extraordinary response considering it was her home and her young children were asleep, your excuse was it was a heavy-handed attempt at humour but just how in context could you argue that was an acceptable thing to say mystifies me," Judge McGuire said.
Mrs Vercoe arrived from her walk and found the defendant lying on the bed covered by a towel texting his flatmate.
"She decided that he was speaking to a female and got more angry. She then squirted water from a drinking bottle at him, tried to knee him in the groin and there is reference to a large glass bottle nearby which had water in it. He was concerned what she was going to do with that," the judge said.
Mr Appleton was told to leave and to get his belongings together.
"The defendant gave evidence that he had an iPod with him and has claimed that there had been in the past damage of high-value belongings of his," the judge said.
"Her evidence was that he grabbed her by the throat, turned her around and pushed her on the couch. She immediately feared for her life with this move.
"For what it's worth I find this to have taken place but it wasn't a long, drawn-out action."
Photographs were submitted of Mrs Vercoe having a mark on her neck.
In relation to the breach of the protection order charge, the complainant reported she had received a telephone call at 10.40pm on October 12.
"She said it was particularly scary as it happened after the lights went out."
A statement was submitted by a technical person at Telecom that records showed the phone call was not answered by a person or machine.
Judge McGuire was critical of the behaviour of both Mr Appleton and Mrs Vercoe.
"This somewhat appals me, there are two mature people, with children nearby and the pair of them are behaving like imbeciles, [this] does neither of them any credibility," he said.
Judge McGuire spoke about the actions Mrs Vercoe inflicted on the defendant when she thought he was texting another woman and how he made steps to leave when requested.
"Albeit in an unhurried fashion but he had to retrieve high-valued items."
Mr Appleton received the benefit of the doubt on all three charges from Judge McGuire.
"In regards to the trespass charge, he rather pushed his luck with that matter, but he did in a slowish way make move to leave, he did indeed retrieve items."
While Judge McGuire was still "highly suspicious" of Mr Appleton not knowing about the phone call, he also dismissed the breach of protection order charge.