Witness denies obsession

The key witness in a murder trial previously professed his love for the 16-year-old victim but has denied he was obsessed with her.

The teenager — whose identity is suppressed — is being grilled by defence counsel Jonathan Eaton, QC, who suggested he must have played more of a role in the death of AmberRose Rush than he had disclosed.

Eaton’s client, Dunedin doctor Venod Skantha, 32, is on trial in the High Court at Dunedin for murder and four counts of threatening to kill.

The teenager, who allegedly drove Skantha to and from the Clermiston Ave address, said that by the time she died on February 2 last year, they were not as close as they had been.

At one point, the witness accepted, he had told Amber-Rose he loved her.

Eaton asked if he was “a little bit obsessed”. “Oh no,” the teen said.

Skantha’s lawyer immediately set out the way they saw the case.

“The defence position is that you have way too much detailed information to have simply got from Dr Skantha and the only way you could’ve had that much of the detail is if you were involved personally.

“And the only reason you’ve been so inconsistent in the accounts you’ve given is because you’re protecting your own position to implicate Dr Skantha,” Eaton said. The witness denied that.

In his interviews with police during February, the teenager said he was a “compulsive liar” but yesterday he sought to clarify that.

“What I meant was I tell white lies. I didn’t mean to say compulsive.”

The cross-examination will continue today.