KEY POINTS:
Feelings were running high as a 28-year-old man accused of sexual violation appeared in the dock at Christchurch District Court yesterday.
Judge Graeme Noble kept the court running as rival families and supporters came close to a clash in the public seats and police stepped in to separate them.
Gary Shane Ian Nicholas appeared on remand charged with the sexual violation of a 16-year-old girl in New Brighton early on Sunday.
Duty solicitor Douglas Brown asked for him to be remanded to Friday for a legal aid application to be processed.
No applications for bail or name suppression were made.
As he was being taken back to the cells, a man in the public gallery called him "a piece of s***" and amid the shouting that followed, a member of one group advanced as though to attack or confront the man.
Police intervened to keep the groups apart and one group was sent outside the courthouse while the other was kept for a time under police watch in the corridor outside the courtroom.
Nicholas, an unemployed Aranui man, has entered no plea.
Police alleged at the weekend that a man had approached the girl as she walked along New Brighton Rd with her boyfriend.
They said the man threatened the boy, who ran nearby to call the police, while the man took the girl to a grass verge and raped her.
- NZPA
