By Belinda Feek<\/p>\n
A community magistrate was unimpressed when a former international sports star failed to turn up to court today to face a charge of obstructing police.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s the defendant and where\u2019s counsel?\u201d Community Magistrate Sherida Cooper asked out loud in the Hamilton District Court when the former sportsman\u2019s case was called.<\/p>\n
The man, in his 30s, is facing a charge of obstructing police as officers tried to deal with another matter in Hamilton during the early hours of Sunday, March 15.<\/p>\n
The man was\u00a0understood\u00a0to have attended the Homegrown music festival on Saturday, March 14.<\/p>\n
However, when his case was called in the\u00a0district court\u00a0today, the community magistrate was unimpressed that neither the defendant nor his counsel, Matthew Smit, was in court.<\/p>\n
After the magistrate asked where they both were, a duty lawyer stood up and said he understood a plea by notice had been filed with the court.<\/p>\n
CM Cooper said she\u2019d received an affidavit confirming the defendant\u2019s not guilty plea, but she appeared unimpressed no one was in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to know why the defendant is not here,\u201d she said before standing the matter down, to allow either the defendant or counsel to appear via audiovisual link.<\/p>\n
A short time later, Smit appeared via a link and explained that he and the defendant were both based outside Waikato, and he\u2019d hoped to have his client\u2019s appearance excused.<\/p>\n
He also confirmed his client pleaded not guilty to the charge.<\/p>\n
CM Cooper was satisfied with that response but told him his client would have to appear next time.<\/p>\n
She remanded the accused on strict bail conditions, including not to drink alcohol, to submit to a passive breath test by a constable when asked, and not to enter the Hamilton CBD or any licensed premises after 8pm.<\/p>\n
She also continued his interim name suppression but told Smit that if he wanted permanent suppression, he should file the required paperwork with the court.<\/p>\n
The sportsman was remanded on bail, on the charge of intentionally obstructing a police constable acting in the execution of his duty, to appear in court again in August.<\/p>\n
The charge he faces carries a maximum penalty of three months\u2019 imprisonment and a $2000 fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Belinda Feek A community magistrate was unimpressed when a former international sports star failed to turn up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-369470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369470","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=369470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}