A 55-year-old Central Otago man charged with perjury was committed for trial by justices of the peace Daphne Stewart and Ashley Broad in the Alexandra District Court yesterday.
Following a two-day depositions hearing to determine whether there was a case against the man, Mr Broad said the court had been provided sufficient information to put the man, who has interim name and occupation suppression, on trial.
The man was remanded on continued bail to appear in the Dunedin District Court for a pre-trial conference on January 22 next year.
His bail conditions included an order for him to reside at a particular address, surrender his passport to the court and not have any contact with witnesses involved in the case.
When yesterday given the opportunity to plead guilty to the charge - of committing perjury by giving evidence in a court hearing which he knew to be false and intended to mislead the court - the man declined.
Certain details of the charge and case surrounding it cannot be reported as they could lead to the man's identity or occupation being revealed.
The first five of 14 prosecution witnesses gave evidence on Monday, and a further six witnesses - including a former police officer and three current police officers - gave evidence yesterday.
The remaining three witnesses did not appear in the court, as their evidence was accepted and handed up by consent.
In his closing submissions, defence counsel Nic Soper, of Queenstown, said he did not think the prosecution had proven the charge, and therefore there was no basis to commit his client for trial.
"[The defendant] has not been charged with giving evidence that has subsequently proven to be wrong. There has been a volume of evidence produced that contradicts the evidence given by [the defendant] in varying degrees . . . but that evidence - even if it was accepted as being true and correct - does not justify a presumption that the evidence given by [the defendant] was deliberately false.
"[The defendant] may very well have been wrong in respect to his recollection . . . but it's a quantum leap from a finding that he may have been wrong to a suggestion that he was deliberately telling lies such as to be guilty of perjury," Mr Soper said.
But Crown counsel Craig Power, of Dunedin, said the defendant knew what he was saying was false, his assertions were false, and there was an inference of his intention to mislead the court.
"Given those assertions that he made about those matters of fact, they must, in the circumstances, have been known to him to be false and ultimately, in my submission it's open for a court to infer he intended to mislead the court when he gave evidence to the contrary," Mr Power said.
