NZ embassy ‘run like Dad’s Army’
Lawyer accuses prosecution of incompetence as trial nears end
Is New Zealand’s former top military attache to the United States “absurdly unlucky” or was he “the bloke who put the camera in the toilet” at our embassy in Washington?
And was one of NZ’s biggest and most important diplomatic centres being run like a bumbling episode?
The questions were posed yesterday morning by Crown prosecutor Henry Steele and defence lawyer Ron Mansfield as the trial of Alfred (Fred) Keating nears its conclusion in the Auckland District Court.
The former Assistant Chief of Navy, who held the rank of Commodore, is accused of planting a covert device in a unisex bathroom in the Washington DC building in July 2017.
He did so, Steele says, to film his colleagues using the toilet.
Keating, 59, was the senior defence attache to the United States at the time and one of the New Zealand military’s highest-ranking officers.
During his closing address yesterday, Steele told the jury Google said the definition of coincidence was “a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection”.
But Keating’s case had too many links for it to be a simple coincidence, Steele said.
Mansfield held a different view. He told the jury the inquiry after the hidden camera was found on July 27 was “inept and incomplete”.
Because of the “significant holes and deficiencies” there were “no reliable links” to conclude who had planted the camera, Mansfield said.
Those links — which Steele relies on — include the internet activity on the former Devonport Naval Base commander’s computer. Under the user name “fredk” inquiries were made for BrickHouse Security, the camera’s brand name.
The searches — about midnight Washington time two days before the device was found in the bathroom — included “Brickhouse camscura modes” and “Brickhouse camscura switch positions”.
The laptop was also used to visit BrickHouse Security web pages eight times between March 25 and July 25.
BrickHouse Security software was installed on Keating’s computer on July 24 but uninstalled at 6.47pm on the day the device was found.
“We know that Mr Keating’s computer, using the user name fredk, has at some point been connected to a BrickHouse security device,” Steele said.
However, the court has heard there is no evidence to suggest Keating ever bought a hidden camera. “If you’re going to purchase a covert camera you might do it covertly,” Steele proposed.
Security camera footage, Steele continued, showed a man matching Keating’s description walking in the direction of the level three toilet. He said the man used a swipe card matched to Keating.
The hidden camera’s first video revealed a person in blue latex gloves positioning the device inside the bathroom’s radiator on July 27.
Mansfield on Tuesday accused embassy staffer and Keating’s driver Mike Waller of placing the camera.
Waller said he had in 2014 bought an identical camera in an effort to catch a petty cash thief at the embassy. The amateur photographer denied the notion he was the guilty man.
A second video, just a minute after the first, shows a man wearing a black Fitbit watch on the left wrist using the toilet.
Steele said this was Keating — but the prosecutor remained unsure why the attache might decide to use the bathroom moments after allegedly planting a covert camera. “Maybe it’s all part of the thrill?”
When police searched Keating’s NZ home that November detectives found an identical black Fitbit. No indecent images were found on Keating’s electronics.
But earlier, on September 17, CCleaner was searched, downloaded and installed on his laptop, the court heard. CCleaner is described online as a program which can delete temporary or unwanted files.
And then there was the DNA, Steele said. An “ultrasensitive” test of the covert device revealed a male DNA profile matching Keating’s was found on the memory card.
It was “10,000 million times more likely” to have come from Keating than another person with the same profile, a DNA expert said.
Keating was either “absurdly unlucky” or “the bloke who put the camera in the toilet”, the prosecutor said.
“What does your common sense tell you?” Steele asked the jury.
But Mansfield said the DNA evidence was contaminated.
The camera had been “picked up and carted through to the ambassador’s office” by several people without gloves before it was eventually sent to New Zealand for forensic testing, he said.
“That level of incompetence sadly wouldn’t even have been shown in Dad’s Army.
“No one should be handling that item without gloves.
“The risk for the embassy may be low [but] the risk of injustice for Mr Keating is high.”
Keating’s Defence career of more than 40 years has come to an end as a result of the allegations after he resigned two days after he pleaded not guilty in March last year.
Judge Robert Ronayne will sum up the case today.