A dog training session at the cemetery on a drizzly April night led to a trial in the Invercargill District Court after a man was accused of assaulting a woman he did not know.
An Invercargill man was charged with assaulting a woman at the Invercargill Cemetery on April 21 last year.
During the judge-alone trial before Judge John Brandts-Giesen on Wednesday, the woman said she went to the cemetery to visit a friend’s grave around 7.30pm.
It was dark and drizzling when she entered the cemetery. She nearly hit a puppy that ran in front of her car.
She stopped and it was then she heard banging on her window.
It was a man and a woman with three dogs out on a training session.
They had a conversation during which she told them she had not seen the dog.
She decided she would just go home and turned around intending to leave the same way she had entered.
By this time the man and his friend were at their separate cars.
The victim wound down her window to apologise to them and tell them it was not very good they had their dogs off the leads.
"The guy was quite rude and just all very quickly he came over to my car."
She could "feel his anger" as she wound down the passenger side window and it was then he allegedly threw water into her car.
When she got out of the car to confront him and to take some video, he allegedly hit her in the nose with what she thought was a closed fist and sent her glasses flying.
The short video was played in court.
In it the man tells the victim to back off and calls to his friend who is leaving in her car to come back and take some video too.
The victim is yelling and screaming that the man has abused and attacked her.
When he gave evidence, the man said he did throw water at the woman but it was after she had taken the video, when she was out of her car.
He claimed he never intentionally hit the woman, but said he may have accidentally connected with her — possibly with his elbow or shoulder — when he put his arms up to fend off her physical attack on him.
Straight after the incident the woman called the police who came to the cemetery.
The man also went to the Invercargill police station and made a statement of his version of events.
Yesterday, Judge Brandts-Giesen said the charge had not been proven.
While he said the woman was not a liar, he said the emotion of her visiting her dead friend as well as her near miss with the puppy would have heightened her emotions on that night.
"The sedate and polished woman in the witness box apparently broke up that day and reacted in a rather aggressive and defiant manner."
He believed she had abused the man and had confronted him.
The man’s throwing of water on to her was pre-emptive and a proportionate response to her actions, he said.
The level of the injuries she received were more likely to have come from a defensive move rather than being intentionally hit by the man, Judge Brandts-Giesen said.
