Four police officers will today go on trial charged with assaulting a man who died after being tasered, pepper-sprayed and bitten by a police dog in an early-morning incident near Napier's Westshore Beach.
Details of the accused - each of whom has pleaded not guilty to a charge of assault with a weapon - had been suppressed pending the Napier District Court trial which follows the death of Taranaki man Gregory McPeake, 53, on the Friday morning of March 13, 2015.
After defence applications opposed by media were heard in court, Judge Phillip Cooper ruled the occupations could be revealed, because otherwise it would effectively create a trial in secret.
But the names remain suppressed pending review after the verdicts at the end of a trial which is scheduled to take up to three weeks.
The charges relate to an incident which happened about 12.30am, after police came across a car containing Mr McPeake. He had been wanted in connection with an incident at his parents' Hastings home during the night. He had driven to Hawke's Bay from his home in New Plymouth.