Gore police officer Alastair Brown has been found not guilty of insurance fraud but remains suspended from his job pending a police code of conduct assessment.
Brown (35) was acquitted by a jury in the Dunedin District Court yesterday at the end of a week-long trial.
He had denied that in January 2009 he arranged to have his $25,000, 2001 Holden Commodore taken and "trashed" so he could claim the insurance. The Crown theory was he was struggling to meet the weekly hire purchase payments and having the car written off was his way of getting market value for it.
He said he had nothing to do with what happened. His defence was that a friend of his, Paul Burford, took the car and destroyed it as a way of getting back at him for having an affair with Mr Burford's partner.
The jury took just over five and a-half hours to reach its finding.
Following the verdict, Inspector Lane Todd, police southern district operations manager, said Brown would remain suspended until an assessment was made as part of an employment investigation in relation to the police code of conduct. That assessment would be carried out next week, he said.
Brown was charged with dishonestly using an AMI vehicle theft claim form for financial gain on January 26, 2009. Paul Burford and his son, Mitch, were charged as parties to the alleged fraud.
They admitted their involvement and said what they did was at Brown's request because he wanted to claim the insurance.
The Crown said Brown had been struggling financially, even after he joined the police force in 2008.
By arranging to have the car destroyed, he stood to gain the market value so would be better off than if he accepted a $20,000 offer from a friend for the car, Crown counsel Robin Bates said.
But defence counsel Max Winders argued Brown loved the car and it would have made no sense for him to have it "trashed".
Had he been planning to have it destroyed, why would he have made extra payments to bring the hire purchase contract up to date, Mr Winders asked.
There was nothing suspicious or inconsistent about where Brown had parked the car that night, Mr Winders said. The Crown argued it was left in Meadow St, Dunedin, rather than the Mornington Tavern car park because it was less likely Paul Burford would be seen taking it.
Judge Paul Kellar summed up the case for the jurors yesterday morning.
