Police officer admits bribery, indecency charges
A Christchurch police officer has resigned after admitting indecencies with two women who were alone with him in a patrol car.
Gordon Stanley Meyer, 45, pleaded guilty to the two charges on the morning his two-week trial was due to begin in the High Court at Christchurch.
Justice Graham Panckhurst remanded him on bail for sentence on December 19, and asked for a pre-sentence report that will consider Meyer’s suitability for home detention.
Defence counsel Jonathan Eaton, QC, told the court that Meyer had now tendered his resignation as a police officer and was no longer a serving officer.
He also said Meyer did not seek continuation of the suppression orders that have prevented any coverage of the case as it proceeded to trial. Media have not been able to report Meyer’s name, nor his occupation as a police officer.
He admitted charges that in September 2011 he agreed or offered to accept a bribe for sexual gratification in return for not continuing with a drink-driving prosecution against a woman, and that in April 2011 he indecently assaulted another woman by placing her hand on his groin and touching her breasts.
Crown prosecutor Pip Currie read the summary of facts in court. She said that Meyer was a senior constable with 19 years service and he regularly undertook the duties of acting sergeant.
On September 14, 2011, he stopped a 23-year-old woman who had been socialising and then drove away from a Riccarton bar with a male companion in the car.
When she was stopped, the breath-screening test showed a level of more than the 400mcg per litre legal limit.
Meyer had a discussion with her, and she asked if he could warn her and take her keys.
Meyer told her: “How about we sort it out on a personal level?”
She asked him to clarify, and he repeated the offer. She suggested they go across the road and she perform oral sex. Because of her male companion in the car, they agreed a later arrangement would be made.
He took them to an address where the man went into the property and the woman was alone in the car with Meyer. Meyer induced her to expose her breasts to him before she went inside.
He then went to the station, but returned to the address a couple of hours later. A friend of the woman went outside and told him the victim was not coming out and did not want any further contact with him.
Meyer made a series of attempts to contact her and had three phone conversations with her over the next few weeks. When she was stopped again in October 2011, it prompted her to make a complaint that she was being stalked.
Police inquiries showed that Meyer had not completed the drink-driving process as required and the pages in his notebook were blank.
The other charge related to an 18-year-old woman who met Meyer in the course of his police duties. While in the patrol car he grabbed her hand and placed it in his crotch area and tried to undo the zip. When she pulled her hand away, he put his hand under her top and brassiere and touched her breast.
Mrs Currie told the court: “She felt powerless because the defendant was a police officer and she was scared of him.”
Meyer made no comment when the police interviewed him about the charges.
Justice Panckhurst decided to continue Meyer’s bail for the sentencing. He has had to surrender his passport and live at a North Island address.
Category: News
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