Source: Radio New Zealand
Devonport Naval Base. RNZ / Kim Baker Wilson
A senior navy officer facing court martial over allegations of encouraging a junior to kiss them on the cheeks at a bar during an overseas operation in 2023 has been found not guilty of doing an act to prejudice service discipline.
The charge under the Armed Forces Discipline Act, which includes any act likely to bring discredit on the service of the Armed Forces, carries a penalty of up to two years imprisonment.
A panel of three senior military officers, acting as a jury would in a civilian court, delivered their unanimous verdict of “not guilty” on Wednesday morning, after more than five hours of deliberation across Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, at the Court Martial sitting at the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland.
The senior officer’s name cannot yet be reported, pending their appeal of a decision by Judge William Hastings to decline their application for name suppression.
On Monday, both the former junior officer who was allegedly encouraged to kiss the senior officer, as well as the accused senior officer, took the witness stand.
The alleged interaction happened in Fiji in March 2023, when officers were given leave for a few days and were drinking at a bar in town at night.
The former junior officer, who was the sole witness for the prosecution, said the senior officer first caught the attention of him and another junior officer when they tapped on a glass pane and gestured for a kiss through the other side of the glass, and later gestured for them to come inside the bar and tapped on their cheeks to gesture for a kiss.
The senior officer denied seeking a kiss on the cheek from the junior officer, and said their level of intoxication was two, on a scale of zero to ten, with zero being sober, when they arrived at the bar.
Another navy officer called as a defence witness said they’d spent the majority of that night with the senior officer, and did not see them with the junior officer.
The former junior officer, during cross-examination by the accused’s lawyer, conceded that he didn’t tell the whole truth when first approached by the military police in August 2024, as he didn’t think he’d be taken seriously and that he was worried his career would be affected if he spoke up.
Under cross-examination by the defence lawyer, He admitted that alcohol affected his memory of some events of the night, but was adamant that he had a clear memory of the alleged core interaction with the senior officer.
More to come….
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
