A woman who worked under the former director of the National Environment Service (NES), Nga Puna and facing four counts of theft as a servant, has appeared in court.

It comes less than a week after her first appearance when her lawyer Mark Short sought name suppression.

She appeared in the Criminal Court at Avarua before Justice of the Peace Tangi Taoro on Thursday with an application for variation of bail conditions.  

It comes about a fortnight after Puna and his wife Diane Charlie-Puna, the former secretary of Infrastructure Cook Islands, appeared in court on multiple theft offences.

Short told the court it was a relatively new case and said he was not sure if JP Taoro had reviewed it.

The application was to ask for name suppression to continue to give the defendant time to tell family and friends.   

It was the same situation last week when outside of court on Friday, Short said he wanted his client to have name suppression for about a week so she could have time to contact family.

The defendant appeared as a last-minute case on October 14 and the Cook Islands News was not notified.

At the time, Short said he was also not notified by police that his client had been charged, which meant he was not able to represent her on her first appearance.

He added his client had been compliant with the police in their investigations.

Yesterday, Short said: “It is a bit of a shock case, she has been a public servant for 40 years”.

He asked for name suppression to continue until a call over date would be confirmed.

JP Taoro granted continued name suppression.  

The defendant is on bail with the conditions that she cannot leave the country without the permission of the High Court, she is not to associate with any witnesses, and needs to surrender her passport to the High Court.