May 02, 2013

Identification to be key issue at indecency trial

By David Clarkson. Identification will be the key issue at the trial of the 63-year-old man accused of being the ?Port Hills groper?.

Months after the man?s arrest ? with the case certainly heading for trial ? the police want to make up photo-montages and show them to the 15 women the man is alleged to have indecently assaulted as they exercised alone.

The police now have three weeks to put together sheets of photographs, and to ask the alleged victims to identify the man who is said to have approached them and then grabbed, groped, or licked them, mainly as they exercised on the Port Hills.

Defence counsel Moana Cole raised issues about the police investigation at a Christchurch District Court status hearing before Judge Phillip Moran today.

She asked for a judicial direction about the photo-montage process but Judge Moran said he would not intervene. If there were issues about the process they could be raised at the trial.

Ms Cole said identification would be the key issue at the trial.

The man was allowed to sit throughout the hearing. He has regular asthma attacks and has now collapsed twice at court.

One collapse occurred after he was arrested yesterday on a charge of breaching his bail. That followed an allegation from a complainant that he had been walking on Huntsbury Hill. The man?s bail conditions ban him from going onto the Port Hills.

However, Ms Cole said he had been walking on Centaurus Road but he denied going onto Huntsbury Avenue, and the bail breach was denied.

She asked for the remand to another status hearing on May 23 so that the police could provide remaining details about the prosecution case. The remand will allow the photo-montage process to be completed.

The man, a refugee, remains on bail during the remand. His interim name suppression has been continued and the media are not permitted to publish his country of origin.