Veitch flatmate says there's more to story

A former flatmate and close female friend of broadcaster Tony Veitch has spoken out about the behaviour of the partner he is accused of attacking, claiming she would come to their home and demand to see him at 2 or 3am and that she complained of back pain before the alleged assault.

Veitch is alleged to have kicked Kristin Dunne-Powell so hard that he broke her back. He resigned from both Television New Zealand and The Radio Network after publicly admitting "lashing out" at her and that there had been a "terrible incident" which he regretted. He has not commented on other aspects of the assault, although claims have been traded by parties aligned to each.

Veitch's former flatmate, who declined to be named, said she lived with the broadcaster and another man for a year in Kohimarama, one of Auckland's eastern bays, in 2002, near the start of Veitch's relationship with Dunne-Powell.

She said that on several occasions that year, when the couple had temporarily broken up, Dunne-Powell turned up unannounced at their Comins Cres home in the early hours and banged on the door calling "Tony, Tony".

The woman said "Tony would let her in and say, `Kristin honey, what are you doing here?' Then she would leave and come back and bang on the door again. He was trying to do the diplomatic thing and say, `you're upset, you need to go home'.

"I just thought everyone has issues. But the relationship was fine, they were cool."

The woman said she had heard Dunne-Powell complain of pain in her back during this time four years before the alleged assault in January 2006.

"What I want to say," she told the Sunday Star-Times yesterday, "is enough is enough. I believe Tony was a victim of her behaviour.

"He is a really nice guy he is the person that everyone thought he was before this came out."

She said she had not asked him what he had done to Dunne-Powell but "I never saw him be aggressive towards her. He is not a violent person."

A former friend of Dunne-Powell's also spoke to the Star-Times yesterday to refute reports that the former Vodafone executive had been forced to quit her job because of the assault. She said Dunne-Powell told her that her position had been made redundant and that she had been offered another general manager role, but she was going to take the payout and take time out to plan for her wedding.

The friend, who also declined to be named, said she had gone to visit Dunne-Powell only a few days after the incident, which Dunne-Powell attributed to falling down stairs. "She was walking cautiously, but she was not in a wheelchair."

She had seen Dunne-Powell and Veitch together and "I observed a couple in love. They would go to clubs and bars; they were a normal couple."

She felt Dunne-Powell should not have accepted a payout and then laid an assault complaint with police.

Police have been investigating the complaint for six weeks but have made no decision about whether to charge Veitch. Veitch has retained prominent Auckland QC Stuart Grieve.

- © Fairfax NZ News