More details have been revealed about the police case against disgraced
broadcaster Tony Veitch. The details are contained in a police file made
available to a number of news organisations under the Official Information
Act.
Veitch confessed to just one violent attack against
his ex-girlfriend Kristin Dunne-Powell. Six other assault charges were dropped
as part of deal struck by lawyers.
But details of those
charges have now been revealed. In her statement, Ms Dunne-Powell outlines the
years of violence she says she was subjected to: "Tony was bearing down on me
again and I was absolutely terrified. I felt I knew what may come next. I
dropped to the ground to crawl out and away. As I tried to get away, he started
kicking me hard. It was so painful, that I actually ended up flipping
over."
On another occasion, she says they fought violently
at rented cottage north of Auckland.
"He threw me
backwards onto the bed ... he was absolutely enraged, shouting at me. I was so
terrified I got off the bed and locked myself in the bathroom. Tony was so angry
he punched a hole in the wall."
Afterwards, the couple
concocted a story about how the damage happened.
"Tony
told us he was playing around with a ball ... that caused the hole. He was very
apologetic. We came to an arrangement ... that more than covered the
damage."
The police file contains more than 30 witness
statements, many of them from friends of Ms Dunne-Powell who saw her
bruises.
"On her right thigh was an enormous bruise, and
it covered the whole of her thigh. I said to her, 'Jesus Kristin, what the
hell's that?'"
"She told me she had fallen off her
bike."
But not everyone painted Ms Dunne-Powell as the
victim. One witness described her as a jealous, manipulative
girlfriend.
"Kristin through a form of interrogation
demanded to know exactly when and how often Tony and I spoke ... what the
content of our conversations consisted of."
Veitch's
spokesperson declined to appear on camera, but told 3 News she was horrified the
police file had been released, when Veitch flatly denied most of its contents.
She said the past nine months had been hell for him, but he was carrying out his
sentence of community service and trying to move on with his
life.
3 News