{"id":276286,"date":"2026-02-10T04:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/276286\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T04:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T04:26:07","slug":"royal-new-zealand-navy-officer-court-martial-panel-in-deliberations-over-alleged-kiss-request","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/276286\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal New Zealand Navy officer court martial: Panel in deliberations over alleged kiss request"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">In a court martial, all three military members must reach a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Judge William Hastings summed up his findings to the panel this afternoon, emphasising the prosecution must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">He said if there was any reasonable doubt, they had to find the accused not guilty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Hastings said two witness accounts &#8211; the accused\u2019s and the junior officer\u2019s &#8211; are at the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">He said it was not a case of whose account they preferred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Judge Hastings finished his summary by warning members their decision was final and of great importance, and there was no second chance to change it.<\/p>\n<p>Credibility at heart of court martial<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Appearing as a witness,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/senior-navy-officers-court-martial-closing-arguments-presented-over-alleged-kiss-encouragement\/7UQLBOP4ORC6TNHIBUNMOMV5CM\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/senior-navy-officers-court-martial-closing-arguments-presented-over-alleged-kiss-encouragement\/7UQLBOP4ORC6TNHIBUNMOMV5CM\/\"> the junior officer told the court yesterday<\/a> he decided not to report the incident out of belief the complaint wouldn\u2019t go anywhere, and it would affect his training.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">He said he wanted to \u201ccover his tracks and hide in a bush\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Under cross-examination, the officer agreed drinking could have affected his memory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">However, he said he remembered the incident clearly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThat was a relatively shocking thing to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Appearing as a witness, the defendant denied the incident even occurred.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Another defence witness, who was also present on the evening of the alleged incident, backed this account.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">The senior officer also said a kiss on the cheek was a common greeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cPeople kiss me on the cheek every day. They did it when I arrived this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"sOrINelcmiMRl\" style=\"display:none\">Both the Crown prosecutor and the defendant\u2019s lawyer told the court in closing arguments the case is a question of the credibility of witnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a court martial, all three military members must reach a unanimous decision. Judge William Hastings summed up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1117,1554,155557,1349,55604,34552,18939,17150,78,26588,19727,15371,647,29787,46664,117,111,43,139,69,10932,1523,12253,45822,9855,5843,165,2846,80],"class_list":["post-276286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accused","tag-alleged","tag-cheek","tag-court","tag-deciding","tag-deliberations","tag-encouraging","tag-fate","tag-in","tag-junior","tag-kiss","tag-martial","tag-military","tag-naval","tag-navy","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officer","tag-over","tag-panel","tag-request","tag-royal","tag-senior","tag-their","tag-them","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}