MAN TO STAND TRIAL

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29068, 3 December 1959, Page 19

MAN TO STAND TRIAL

Alleged Breaking And Entering

A 15-year-old girl was petrified with fear when she was awakened ,in the bedroom of’her home about 11 p.m. bn November 6 by someone breathing heavily in the room and who touched her on the back, according to evidence given in the. Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Walter Clifford Te Koeti, aged 26, a labourer (Mr G. R. Lascelles) was committed for trial at the next sitting of the Supreme Court in Christchurch oh a charge of breaking and entering a house by night on November 6. Messrs R. H. Harris and W. W. Laing, Justices of the Peace, were on the Bench.

The girl, whose name was suppressed, said she went to turn on the light and the man made off hurriedly out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. She called out and her parents came into the room. When she told them what had happened her mother ran to the front door and her father to the back door. She did not know the accused and had given him no encouragement to visit the house. The mother of the previous witness, whose name was also suppressed, said she was awakened by her daughter calling out. She went to her bedroom and found her sitting up in bed, and she was so terrified that at first she could not speak. She ran to the front door and saw a man dressed in a dark suit running across the corner of the street.

Sergeant S. W. Byers said he was on patrol in Papanui road when he saw the accused walking towards the city, and he took him to the Central Police Station. Police Interview Detective-Constable S. J. Main said he was on C. 1.8. night patrol when he received a radio message to go to the home of the complainant. Later he made a patrol of the streets in the vicinity and saw the accused walking in a northerly direction in Rossall street. He gave his name and said he lived at Lyttelton. He denied that he was a man who 'had been disturbed in a house earlier in the evening. He said he had been to the pictures and then had gone to see his girl friend in Barnes road, Papanui. The witness said he had later learnt that Barnes road was in Belfast. ;

He interviewed the accused after he had been brought in by Sergeant Byers. He was very agitated. He refused to make a statement, but said he would tell the police what had happened. The accused said he was receiving psychiatric treatment from a woman, and that on several occasions when he was going for treatment he had seen the 15-year-old girl in the front garden of her home. The accused had said that on the evening of November 6 he had seen the girl in Cathedral square and he saw her board a bus, Detective-Constable Main said. He decided to follow her and got off at the same stop as she did. He gave the girl time to get to bed before he went to her house, and then waited in the shadows for a while after the lights had gone out. He entered the house by the back door and went to the girl’s bedroom at the front of the house. He knelt on the floor by her bed, prodded her in the back and shook the bed. The accused said he suffered from blackouts' and wanted to indecently assault the girl. When the girl screamed he rushed out of the house through the back door.