Store manager fined $950 for indecent act

A QUEENSTOWN store manager has been fined for committing an indecent act in his car near the resort’s town centre in late 2015.

At a judgealone trial in January, Brendon Michael Hansen (42) was found guilty of committing an indecent act in Ballarat St, a public place, on December 6 that year.

Sentencing Hansen in the Queenstown District Court on Wednesday, Judge John Strettel said the defendant was ‘‘a bit of an enigma’’ with no previous history of such offending.

The woman complainant was walking to her vehicle about 2.30am after a work shift, when Hansen called out to her through his open window.

When she saw what he was doing she called police.

She was unable to remember his car registration number, and when she drove past a short time later the car had gone.

Hansen was arrested the following month after the complainant recognised him while he was in his car in the same spot.

Police found him sitting in the driver’s seat, in a reclined position.

Hansen told police in an interview he occasionally loaned his car to others, but would sometimes park in that particular spot because it was where the old high school was when his father was growing up.

It was underneath trees and a quiet place to think.

Judge Strettel fined Hansen $950 and ordered him to pay $130 court costs and $500 to the victim for expenses.