New Zealand’s deputy prime minister has told a court of her feared she would be struck with a dildo when she drove through a demonstration with a colleague.
Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett testified Tuesday in the trial of MP Chester Borrows, who is accused of careless driving in an incident in Whanganui last March.
Ms Bennett says she feared an attack that day after seeing a picture on Facebook of a dildo with her name on it – just weeks after another MP was hit by a flying sex toy.
Two demonstrators, neither carrying sex toys, were slightly injured during the incident in March last year.
Ms Bennett was a passenger in Mr Borrows’ car as it left the function and told him a protestor had threatened her in an “aggressive” social media post that morning.
The threat comprised a picture of a rubber device with “Paula B” written on it, captioned “see you shortly b***h”.
Ms Bennett said the threat was taken seriously as a few weeks earlier an anti-globalisation protester had hit another minister, Steven Joyce, in the face with a pink dildo during an event marking New Zealand’s national day.
“I think I was probably most expecting that they would throw the sex toy at the car,” she said.
“I didn’t really want a photo, or to be in the news, with this thing either hitting me or the window right next to me.”
Television news footage showed the demonstrator who made the threat had turned up with the sex toy at the protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal.
However, he did not appear to be among the group who were impeding Mr Borrows’ car as it left the function.
Mr Borrows, a former police officer, said he wanted to protect Ms Bennett, who at the time was social development minister and became deputy prime minister in December last year.
He denied a charge of careless driving causing injury, saying he inched cautiously through the protestors and had not believed they were at risk.
Judge Stephanie Edwards found Mr Borrows not guilty but said he “would be well advised in the future to leave currently serving police officers to manage these situations as they consider appropriate”.
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