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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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The suppression of
evidence and a slew of defence counsel objections marked day one of
depositions for a Michael Warren Neville,
47, appeared before Justices of the Peace Robert Campbell and Herb Yates in
the Palmerston North District Court yesterday, charged with indecently
assaulting four female pupils, all of them under 12
years old. The charges are
representative, and cover a three-year period from 1999. The name of the
school at which the assaults are alleged to have taken place is suppressed. Three complainants'
mothers gave evidence at the depositions. One of them told the court she had
seen Neville "frequently" hugging girls. She had also seen him
cuddling the girls, holding their hands, or putting them on his knee. Another mother called
him "friendly, lovely. Kids loved him". "If a child would
fall over, he would go and pick him up and give him a bit of a cuddle." The proceedings were
punctuated by regular objections, beginning with one directed against Crown
prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk's opening remarks. Neville's lawyers,
Sandra Moran and Peter Cranney, objected to Mr
Vanderkolk giving details of the offending, claiming his comments came from
video-taped interviews with the complainants. Defence counsel would
be arguing that the videotapes are inadmissible, "contrary to the rules
of evidence", and "most prejudicial", Ms Moran said. The objections to Crown
evidence continued throughout the day, with defence counsel accusing Mr
Vanderkolk of leading his witnesses and introducing hearsay evidence. They also raised
objections to police procedures for submitting evidence (in this case police
photographs), and objected to one sentence in the officer in charge's brief
of evidence. They claimed it was
"prejudicial", and of "little or no probitive
value". Two more witnesses were
to be heard today before the JPs retire to consider whether Neville has a
case to answer. |
