Court locked down as doctor on murder charge appears

A DUNEDIN doctor accused of the murder of a teenage girl was back before the court yesterday but the public were shut out and the media gagged.

Venod Skantha (31) appeared in the High Court at Dunedin by video link from Otago Corrections Facility, but before the hearing began Justice Gerald Nation indicated all substantive matters would be suppressed.

He also ordered the court be locked down and only counsel and media could remain.

Yesterday’s court date was scheduled to hear ‘‘pretrial issues’’.

Justice Nation said when he eventually released a ruling on those matters he would specify what more could be disseminated to the public.

Skantha is charged with the murder of 16yearold AmberRose Rush, who was found dead in her Corstorphine home on February 2.

The defendant — then a doctor at Dunedin Hospital — was charged days later and has pleaded not guilty to that as well as a count of indecent assault and four of threatening to kill.

In August, Skantha dumped Aucklandbased defence lawyer Mark Ryan in favour of Christchurch’s Jonathan Eaton QC, who appeared on his behalf yesterday.

The defendant was declined electronicallymonitored bail by the High Court and that decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal in a ruling made in September.

Skantha graduated from Auckland University in 2014 and was previously registered to practise medicine as a ‘‘house officer’’ at the Southern District Health Board.

His jury trial is set down for March next year.