Affair charge embarrasses Fijians

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 13

Affair charge embarrasses Fijians

PA Auckland An alleged love affair between an Auckland man and his teen-age daughter is causing deep embarrassment in the Fijian community. The police arrested the pair but withdrew charges after the teenager’s mother, who was to be flown from Fiji, decided not to give evidence. Some community members have been upset by the “out in the open” style of the pair’s apparent relationship. They had attended functions together — “even hand in hand,” said one prominent community member. It is rare for incest charges to be brought against a daughter as well as a father, but the police felt she had been a willing and knowing party to the offences. However, recently police withdrew the two incest charges faced by the father. Earlier this year similar charges against the daughter were withdrawn.

Sergeant John Dewar, of

the Auckland Central Police, said that the young woman’s mother, initially willing to come to New Zealand to testify,- changed her mind shortly before her daughter’s depositions hear-

ing. Mr Dewar said that the woman would have given vital evidence verifying the fact that the couple were father and daughter.

She could not be compelled to testify. The police had wanted to deal with the man’s daughter first — so that she could later be used as a witness against her father. One community figure said that the majority of Auckland’s Fijians did not believe the incest charges — which the couple did not admit. But another said that the allegations were widely believed — in Fiji as well as Auckland.

She said that Fijians in Auckland had been embarrassed and disgusted and that at one stage a vigil was maintained outside a house the pair were in.