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The mother of a policeman convicted for assaulting his wife has spoken out in support of a son she says is not violent.
Adrian Hilterman's mother, Dawn Bowen, says she cannot listen to her son's name being dragged through the mud any more. "My son is not a violent man."
The Whakatane sergeant, who started his 27-year police career as a constable in Rotorua in 1985, was convicted of two counts of assaulting his doctor wife, Deborah Hilterman.
Dr Hilterman said she was subjected to a decade of abuse.
Adrian Hilterman was found guilty of two of 12 charges during a trial in the Tauranga District Court that included video evidence from the couple's 9-year-old son.
The two charges he was convicted of alleged he kicked his wife while she cowered on the floor and attacked her while he was driving.
Mrs Bowen, who now lives in New Plymouth but lived in Rotorua for 30 years until 1998, is adamant her son did not abuse his wife and said she was now concerned for the couple's three children, aged 9, 8 and 6, whom she is now not allowed to visit.
"My son is not a violent man. There is no smoke without fire and they fought [but] mostly he would clamp up and walk out."
Mrs Bowen said she never witnessed any physical fights.
"My children were brought up without violence. If I smacked any of my children, I felt I was failing as a parent in what standards I set myself."
Mrs Bowen said her son told her his wife was bruised in the incident in the car as he pushed her off him while he was driving, that he'd had to use force because the car dangerously crossed the road and the children were in the back.
She said she was reluctant to seek publicity but felt someone needed to stand up for her son.
"I'm doing this for my son. I am totally horrified and personally offended by what she's doing to my son and she's alienating the children from his family."
Dr Hilterman told the Daily Post if Mrs Bowen had any comments worth saying she should have given evidence. "If she had something important to say, that is the arena."
She said Mrs Bowen, like Hilterman's other character witnesses in the trial, never saw any of the physical fights because domestic violence was always behind closed doors. "It means squat to be honest."
Dr Hilterman said Mrs Bowen was supportive until she complained to police. "She wrote me a letter criticising me, saying wouldn't I rather 'make love, not war'.
She said she wasn't prepared to allow her in-laws to visit her children if they continued to believe her husband's version of events, as it was condoning his violence. "It is an insult to the jury trial we went through."
- ROTORUA DAILY POST
