KEY POINTS:
Justice may be blind, but it was deafness that brought a hearing to a rapid halt when an 84-year-old rest-home resident defended 15 charges of breaching a protection order.
William John de Hart was charged after he wrote a woman 13 letters and was allegedly seen twice outside her Papanui home.
When the woman gave evidence before Judge Michael Crosbie in the Christchurch District Court yesterday, de Hart eventually told his lawyer that he could not hear.
Then the woman said she could not hear the lawyer.
Then an older man in the public gallery was told off for not standing for the judge when the registrar adjourned the court. He apologised and said he could not hear.
Judge Crosbie put off the hearing to October 15 and ordered that it be held in a small courtroom with a sound system that will enable de Hart to have earphones.
"He's entitled to hear his trial," said the judge, after defence lawyer Brian Green raised the problem after the fixture had been going 15 minutes.
De Hart had been sitting right beside his lawyer so they could talk during the trial, but he does not use hearing aids.
The large No 2 District Court does have a general sound system.
Judge Crosbie also urged that de Hart's hearing be looked at before the fixture in October.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Ash Tabb had opened proceedings by saying the case centred on 13 letters that de Hart had delivered to the woman's letter box, and he had been seen outside her property twice.
The police and defence have agreed that the woman, now in her 60s, took out a protection order against de Hart in October 2005 and that he wrote the letters.
- NZPA
