|
Allegations of Abuse
in NZ |
|
|
peterellis Home / abuse allegations / Peter Stewart Peter Stewart - News
Reports - Page 2 |
|
|
The Press
STAUNCH: Pieter Stewart is
standing by her husband Peter who has been convicted of rape. Pieter Stewart made an elegant
figure as she walked across the soft carpet to the panelled witness box in
the High Court in Christchurch. All eyes were on her and her Louis
Vuitton handbag, in which she reputedly carries a touchstone amethyst. Tall, tanned, immaculate in black
slacks, a black top and a camel-coloured cropped jacket, she sat down, donned
her stylish, black-rimmed spectacles and prepared to defend her husband of 39
years. Although the remarkably
young-looking 61-year-old apparently meditates every morning, she would have
needed more than 30 minutes of "ohmmmmm" to gird herself for this
low moment in a life usually lit by the glamour of belonging to one of
Christchurch's richest families, and by being in charge of glitzy New Zealand
Fashion Week. No, she told the court, she had
never seen her husband have any sexual or inappropriate contact with the
complainant, now 48, who was alleging "kind, patient" Peter had
sexually abused her over a 10-year period. Nor had she ever suspected
anything, she told defence lawyer Jonathan Eaton. No, a pink vibrator mentioned by
the complainant was not hers. No, she could not see how any of
the alleged incidents could have happened without her knowing. She was steadfast and unflustered.
In business, she is regarded as tough, calm, pragmatic and self-contained,
and in the witness box it showed. Three days after her evidence, the
jury of six men and six women found Peter Stewart, farmer, motor racer and
luxury-yacht skipper, guilty of sexually molesting the complainant when she
was under 12 and of raping her and sodomising her after she turned 13. Pieter Stewart, like her husband,
looked unbelieving. But, in court anyway, she held up. No tears. The stain of the allegations crept
into the Stewart household in March 2004 when a relative told Pieter Stewart
that a woman the Stewarts had known most of their lives was accusing Peter
Stewart of having sex with her when she was only 14. Furious, Pieter Stewart accosted
her husband with the allegation, which he met with a shocked denial. She then asked him if he had ever
had sex with the complainant. He had, he confessed shamefacedly,
but only on one occasion when she was 17. Pieter Stewart hit the roof. "You disgusting bastard,"
she said. He took off for the night, but
slowly they patched things up and carried on. The couple first met at the
Christchurch races during Show Week in 1967 when Pieter McKenzie, educated at
St Margaret's College, still lived at home in the slightly seedy Zetland
Hotel in Cashel Street that her parents owned. Peter Stewart liked fast cars, was
dashing and charming and had a playboy reputation. Already with his own farm at
Hawarden, his courtship with Pieter was hindered by the fact he had lost his licence
and by other obstacles. If she wanted to stay overnight at
the farm, her mother, Joan, said to be strict, insisted she was chaperoned.
When Stewart stayed with the McKenzies, he was given a hotel room. Within a year the couple were
married and by 1970 had moved to a more substantial spread at Hororata. Pieter Stewart did a bit of
modelling for pocket money, but soon the first of four children was on the
way and she spent the next 10 years bringing up her young family. An associate, who has known the
family for years, says Pieter Stewart was an ideal farmer's wife but always
wanted to stand on her own two feet and "create her own career". In 1979 she bought a model agency
from friend Paula Ryan and ran it as Pieter's Modelling Agency before selling
it in 1985 to be associate editor of Fashion Quarterly. In the late 1980s she started a
public relations and promotion firm and held voluntary posts with the Child
Cancer Foundation of Canterbury and the Hororata branch of the National
Party. She organised and produced television fashion events (Corbans then
Wella) throughout the 1990s. New Zealand Fashion Week, a forum
for designers to show their wares to international buyers and media, and a
big excuse for a fashion party with all the trimmings, grew out of those
shows and is now touted as New Zealand's biggest event. It started in 2001 and continues
to get bigger and better. The company that owns the event is
solely owned by Pieter Stewart, although Peter Stewart's stepmother, Lady
Stewart, is a director. Peter Stewart has always been
proud of his wife's achievements. In court, he called her talented and
successful and emphasised that she was a wealthy woman in her own right, with
several properties in New Zealand. Friends say he has been fully
supportive of her efforts and is her biggest fan. A business contact of the family
says Peter Stewart can come across as an "arrogant p...." but that
was not uncommon in people who had always been surrounded by money. "Once you get behind that he
really is not a bad guy," the businessman says. To an extent, the couple have
lived separate lives for many years, with Peter Stewart based in Picton to
run his luxury-yacht business and Pieter Stewart living in Auckland to be
close to the Fashion Week office. The couple regularly get together at
Hororata for family weekends. To outsiders, it seemed an unusual
arrangement, but a friend says it seemed to work. Their plans for coming years
included sailing around the world, and they looked forward to grandchildren. Instead, Pieter Stewart will
probably be visiting her husband in a Christchurch prison. She will, as always, cope,
insiders say. Pieter Stewart is "tremendously loyal" to her family
and to those she works with, a friend says. "Her family and her husband
are far too important to her to walk away. She would have gone by now if she
was going to go," the friend says. "She will stand by Peter. She
will visit him in jail if need be, do all the other things, and I think you
will find people will be overwhelmingly supportive of her." A businessman close to the family
says Peter Stewart may not cope as well. "He will do jail hard." |
