Councillor guilty, but defiant
WELLINGTON: Defiant Kapiti Coast district councillor David Scott is refusing to stand down from his position despite being found guilty of indecent assault against a female council staff member.
The 71yearold said he had received more than 100 messages of support from ratepayers wanting him to remain at his post.
‘‘I have never had a criminal conviction,’’ Scott told the The New Zealand Herald. ‘‘I had a speeding ticket 38 years ago.’’
As he had been elected by the district’s 52,000 people he had no intention of stepping down.
‘‘I will carry on.
‘‘This is the worst thing that has happened in my life.’’
The jury in the trial in the Wellington District Court took three and ahalf hours to reach the verdict yesterday.
Scott had earlier pleaded not guilty to one charge of indecent assault.
The Crown argued Scott pressed himself against a Kapiti Coast District Council employee at a morning tea following a council meeting in April last year.
In her closing address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Kate Feltham said the complainant was a professional woman who took her job seriously.
‘‘The evidence she gave was given in a calm, coherent, logical way. She was sure of what happened.’’
In an unusual move on Tuesday, the defendant’s penis was measured by a doctor after the complainant said what she had felt touch her back was about four or five inches long.
The complainant had said it was not a wallet or something else in the defendant’s pocket that she felt as she passed by him at the morning tea.
Ms Feltham yesterday told the jury the measurement of the defendant’s penis in relation to his wallet was irrelevant.
‘‘Now whether she felt his penis or whether she felt something else, I suggest doesn’t actually matter because his actions in grabbing her, holding her and thrusting himself into her were what made it indecent.’’
Ms Feltham said when the complainant turned to look around there was plenty of space.
‘‘So clearly it was a deliberate act on his part to come so close and to grab her in that way.’’
In his closing address to the jury, defence counsel Mike Antunovic said the measurements were relevant.
Under crossexamination he asked a Crown witness to measure Scott’s wallet which was about four and ahalf inches.
‘‘Isn’t that a coincidence, members of the jury, that the wallet actually is as long as the dimensions of this penis that she said she could feel,’’ he asked.
Mr Antunovic said 26 people were invited to the morning tea.
‘‘Is there any room for people to press into each other, to bump into each other, to squeeze past each other in a situation like that? Of course the answer has to be yes.’’
He also questioned what sense it made to choose that moment to commit the alleged offence when the complainant was talking to the mayor in a room with other people.
‘‘To do something like that deliberately in those circumstances is just nuts, crazy and utter nonsense.’’
Mr Antunovic said the alleged thrusting was at the heart of the case because that was what made it indecent. But he said the Crown had not proved that beyond reasonable doubt and the complainant had exaggerated her account.
Scott was remanded on bail until June 19 for sentencing. — NZME