Northern Territory cop Nitin Verma has won an appeal against a conviction of assaulting a woman on an Alice Springs dance floor. Read what the judges had to say.
Nitin Verma was previously found guilty by the Local Court of assaulting a woman on the dancefloor of Epilogue Bar in Alice Springs.
The prosecution had alleged the woman was on the dancefloor with her niece when Mr Verma, who was an off-duty police officer, put his hand up the back of her dress, touched the right side of her leg and slid his hand up her leg until he touched the bottom of her underwear.
After this it is alleged the woman turned around and hit Mr Verma’s hand away, after which he put his hands up and backed away.
It was also alleged that about 10 minutes later, after the woman had gone to the bar, Mr Verma followed her back onto the dance floor and “started rubbing and pushing his backside against her, apparently attempting to get her to dance with him”.
Stills taken from CCTV footage, alongside witness accounts, were used as evidence of the alleged assaults during Local Court proceedings.
NT police officer Nitin Verma (right) leaving Alice Springs Local Court in 2021.
The CCTV footage showed Mr Verma and the woman meeting at 11.36pm and showed Mr Verma “twerking his bottom” towards the woman at 11.38pm and 11.40pm.
The investigating officer, during cross-examination, confirmed that stills from 11.41pm and 11.42pm – where “something similar to, or a reaction to, a hand up the dress is shown” – were the only ones that came close to the woman’s allegations.
He agreed the footage did not show the woman turning around and smacking Mr Verma’s hand away.
At 11.47pm the footage showed a young man dropping his drink on the dance floor and the woman spinning around and then watching Mr Verma leaving the dancefloor.
The woman made it clear that none of the footage shown to her captured Mr Verma putting his hand up her skirt, and confirmed that occurred between 12am and the bar closing at 1am.
Mr Verma was found guilty in the Local Court of the first count of assault, where he allegedly slid his hand up the woman’s leg but not guilty of circumstances of indecency.
He was found not guilty of the second count, where he allegedly rubbed his backside against the women.
He appealed the guilty verdict to the Supreme Court in March last year on the grounds the verdict was contrary to the evidence, ‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’.
That appeal judge rejected the appellants argument and held he “had shown no cogent or logical reason to disturb the primary judge’s findings that the complainant was a credible and reliable witness and that it was open to the primary judge, on the whole of the evidence, to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt”.
This verdict was then appealed again to the Court of Appeals, where Justice Michael Grant, Justice Peter Barr and Justice Sonia Brownhill considered the prosecutor had made the case that the alleged offending occurred at the moments depicted in CCTV footage and it was vital to the allegations the Crown was required to prove that fact beyond reasonable doubt.
They stated in cross-examination of the woman’s evidence the alleged assault occurred between 12am and 1am, and the CCTV footage tendered in evidence did not depict the offending.
They stated the investigating officer said there were no other CCTV footage besides the stills tendered that depicted anything close to the woman’s complaints.
They concluded because of this evidence about the CCTV footage the primary judge must, “as distinct from might,” have entertained doubt about Mr Verma’s guilt on the first count of assault.
They stated that given the conclusion the primary judge must have entertained a doubt about Mr Verma’s guilt, the verdict is ‘unsafe and unsupported by the evidence’.
They ordered the previous guilty conviction be quashed, the previously dismissed appeal to the Supreme Court be allowed and for a verdict of acquittal to be entered.