Dog officer tells of bottle attack
A simple inquiry by an animal control officer erupted into a melee with flying bottles and knives, threats to injure, and a pitbull being tasered.
A jury at Napier District Court yesterday was told of how Courtenay Fraser, 21, allegedly assaulted Napier City Council animal control officer Wayne Butcher after he arrived at her home in Wellesley Rd on the evening of November 24 last year.
Butcher told the court he was sent there shortly before 5pm after reports that occupants were sitting outside and threatening to set their pitbull-crosses on dogs being walked by passersby.
He described finding Fraser and two men sitting on a couch outside under a tree. As he approached the picket fence and introduced himself, one of the men said: ‘‘Who the f... are you?’’
‘‘I was a bit taken aback. I thought it was quite obvious with my vehicle right behind me with ‘animal control’ written on it,’’ Butcher said.
He said Fraser stood up and told him to ‘‘f... off’’ before picking up a jug full of liquid and throwing it at his face.
As he wiped his face, Fraser picked up a glass bottle and got over the fence. ‘‘She raised it above her head to smack me with it . . . I put my left arm up. It bashed against my forearm.’’
Then Fraser smashed the bottle on the fence and began waving the broken bottle at him ‘‘while the males encouraged her to stab me in the face’’, Butcher said.
‘‘She was totally hysterical. I’ve actually never seen anyone react like that . . . She was lunging at me with a stabbing motion towards my face.’’
Butcher backed up along the street until she lost interest in him and started hitting his vehicle instead.
He crossed the road and called police as Fraser bashed his vehicle.
She stopped and went back on to the property, then she and the men went into the house.
‘‘I walked back across the road toward my vehicle and, just as I got to the door to open it up, I saw a knife come flying over the fence and hit the front of the truck,’’ Butcher said.
As he spoke to police, there was a ‘‘barrage of bottles thrown on to the road and footpath’’.
Under cross-examination, he said he saw Fraser in the vicinity of where the knife came from, but he could not be certain she threw it.
Two police officers described their attempts to get Fraser and the men out of the house.
Constable Grant Marshall said Fraser was in a room behind a closed door and did not come out, so the door had to be knocked in.
As he entered, a dog jumped off a bed towards him and he tasered it. Fraser then came towards him with her arm raised, so he restrained and handcuffed her.
The dog, which Butcher estimated to be a year old, was tasered a second time before Butcher was able to take it to his vehicle.
Constable Stephanie Grant said Fraser resisted arrest and kicked out at officers.
She has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault with a bottle as a weapon, assault using a broken bottle as a weapon, and assault using a knife as a weapon.
The trial, before Judge Geoff Rea, will continue today.