Police officer accused of sexually assaulting teen allowed to return to New Zealand

CONTENT WARNING: This article refers to an alleged sexual assault.

A court has heard the senior referee accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl before the Kanga Cup is a long-serving police officer in New Zealand.

David Brooke was arrested over the alleged incident earlier this month and granted bail when he first fronted court, then asked for his bail conditions to be varied so he could return home when he appeared in court again this week.

In late June, the 66-year-old travelled from Auckland to the ACT to work as a senior referee at the Kanga Cup, newly released court documents reveal.

He and other senior mentors and referee coaches went to a refereeing meet-up for team building exercises on 1 July 2023, which was held before the cup was to take place.

It is alleged in the documents that during one of the exercises, Mr Brooke “aggressively” grabbed a teenage girl under her arms with both of his hands, causing his hands to touch her breasts.

The teenager alleged she felt him squeeze his hands on her breasts and she tried to pull away from him. She reported the allegations to the police several days later.

On Thursday (13 July), the ACT Magistrates Court heard Mr Brooke would plead not guilty to the charge of committing an act of indecency on a young person under his special care.

His barrister, John Purnell SC, said his client had been a police officer for 31 years and the New Zealand police force was aware of the charge against him.

He sought a bail variation so Mr Brooke could return to his home country and described the prosecution’s concerns against granting such a variation as “mumbo-jumbo speculation”.

He said he had 16 affidavits from people who said his client would return to Australia and defend himself against the allegations.

Prosecutor David Leggett opposed the variation saying the concern was Mr Brooke not returning to the ACT’s courts, arguing he was a New Zealand citizen facing a serious alleged offence with a strong prosecution case.

The court heard there was a concern over what the extradition process would be from New Zealand.

Magistrate Glenn Theakston said the extraditions he has had experience with involved other countries and they took months and years, but he thought it would be much quicker with New Zealand.

After several adjournments during the day, Mr Purnell said as he understood there no longer was a concern over extradition.

He said his client had been separated from his family, home, job and friends and had been increasing expenses while in Australia.

Magistrate Theakston ultimately granted the bail variation with the additional requirement that Mr Brooke agrees to pay $30,000 if he failed to appear in accordance with his undertaking.

He also excused him from appearing in court in person for any of the pre-hearing mention stages of the case. The matter was adjourned to 21 September.