Lifeguard saw man ‘touching’

A LIFEGUARD says he raised concerns on June 10, 2017, after he saw a man, who spent more than nine hours in the pool that day, touch two children in the lazy river.

But Liam Wright’s concerns were not recorded in handover emails to facility managers.

Yesterday was the third day of the trial at the Invercargill District Court for the man accused of 13 counts of indecently assaulting children under the age of 12 at Alpine Aqualand in Queenstown on three different dates.

Mr Wright said he started his shift on June 10, 2017, at noon.

His supervisor immediately told him to keep a close eye on a man who was ‘‘a bit suspicious and had been in the lazy river about two hours’’.

CCTV footage indicated the man spent about five hours in the facility on June 8, more than nine hours there on June 10 and almost four hours on June 14, until being escorted away by police.

Mr Wright said the man was holding a float board with one arm and used the other to ‘‘kind of swim’’ using a ‘‘very slow’’ sweeping movement, similar to breaststroke.

The lifeguard, who had about two years’ experience at the time, said he saw the man make physical contact with two children, ‘‘I believe intentionally’’.

He said the lazy river was 1.8m wide and thought three people could stand beside each other and not touch.

It appeared as though the man timed his stroke to deliberately make contact with children.

During his shift he only saw the man get out of the pool twice, both times to use the bathroom.

‘‘I rarely see anybody in the whole pool area for that long, let alone the lazy river.

‘‘It seemed very, very strange . . . at least 71⁄2 hours of floating around doing the exact same thing.’’

Under crossexamination he told defence counsel Joseph Mooney his concern about intentional contact with children was reported that day to his supervisor.

Mr Mooney produced the handover emails, one of which was sent at 3.46pm on June 10 and in reference to the man said, in part: ‘‘he hasn’t really done anything wrong (except for going in circles for six hours) ha ha [smiley face]’’.

It also said there had been ‘‘no complaints’’ from customers.

Mr Wright said, looking back, he should have recorded it himself, but believed ‘‘passing it on’’ would be enough.

An earlier complainant yesterday told defence counsel Hugo Young she was no longer sure the man’s alleged touching of her twice on June 14 was accidental. In her DVD interview she said she thought the man was ‘‘just swimming’’ but told the court yesterday his behaviour ‘‘should have rung some alarms’’.

Looking back, the man could have moved to avoid her ‘‘but he still touched me’’, she said.

The trial continues.