Roper warned about disruption at prison assault trial
Prison inmate Nikki Roper was warned that if he disrupted a trial on charges of assaulting two Corrections officers, he would be shut out and the hearing would go ahead without him.
The 26-year-old sat quietly in the dock, manacled and flanked by two prison officers. Two more officers sat outside the dock, and two police were at the back of the Christchurch District Courtroom, in the public seating.
Judge Stephen O’Driscoll issued his warning to Roper at the start of the one-day trial.
He said he had granted the Corrections Department’s request for Roper to stay manacled during the trial, and stay in the dock rather than sitting behind his lawyer, Kiran Paima.
He told Roper: “”Should there be any disruption of these proceedings by you, I am authorised under the Criminal Procedures Act – and I indicate to you I will – to hear these proceedings in your absence. I give you that advice now.”
Roper shook his head, but the trial went ahead quietly.
Roper denies assaulting and resisting two Corrections officers in an incident at the Christchurch Men’s Prison on September 24, 2014.
A Corrections officer said he was doing security checks on cells when he decided to check Roper’s cell because of a burning smell. He noted breaks in the anti-tampering stickers keeping a stereo unit closed, and began to take it out of the cell.
He said the stickers ensured that nothing had been taken out of the unit such as a motor which could be used as an improvised tattooing device.
As he was holding the stereo, Roper shoulder charged him, knocking him off balance. He put the stereo down and then Roper punched him in the face with a closed fist. Roper also grabbed a handful of his hair and he was worried about struggling on a top landing and concerned that he might be hit again or bitten.
“He was close to my face. Prison officers have been bitten before. It does happen quite regularly,” he said.
He then punched Roper in the face, with another officer’s help he was put on the floor and handcuffed.
The officer said he received a chipped tooth, which had to be removed, and a cut on his hand.
Cross-examined, the officer denied he had told Roper he was being charged for having the stereo in his cell, and that he had lost his job as a unit laundry worker because of an issued with laundry going missing. The officer explained that he was surprised by the assault, as the court watched security video footage of the incident. He also denied Mr Paima’s suggestion that there had been no punch. “I definitely felt one,” he said.
The trial is continuing.
Category: Focus
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