Yves Pan, an over 70-year-old French national who is also a Cook Islands permanent resident, will appear in the High Court today at Avarua.

Application for costs

Yves Pan, an over 70-year-old French national who is also a Cook Islands permanent resident, will appear in the High Court today at Avarua.

Pan with his lawyer, Reuben Tylor are seeking costs from the Cook Islands Police.

The application follows Pan missing a repatriation flight a year ago that was serviced by the French navy, to his home in Tahiti.

Pan at the time, faced a fraud charge and missed the flight an hour before its departure because the Court denied him bail unless he paid a bond of $60,000, which he was unable to do.

The charges that accused Pan of fraud were dropped in March.

Yesterday in the Criminal Court, Justice of the Peace, Nadine Newham, transferred the case to the High Court. The matter will be dealt with by Chief Justice Sir Hugh Williams.

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Damage to Street Light

Tematangi Andrew, charged with willful damages to three houses and three street lights in Penrhyn, will appear before the Chief Justice today in the High Court at Avarua.

In the Criminal Court on Thursday, police said they wanted the matter to be withdrawn.

However, Justice of the Peace said it was out of Rarotonga’s jurisdiction to deal with the matter until it was transferred from Penrhyn.

Police said an application was made to get Andrew’s matter transferred to Rarotonga, but they were still waiting on the Chief Justice to make the change.

Police said they wanted to withdraw the matter because a letter of withdrawal was given to them by Penrhyn’s island council for the damage of the Crown property.

Police will ask Chief Justice, Sir Hugh Williams QC to withdraw the matter today.

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$600 fine

A man was slapped with a $600 penalty for his first offence of careless driving and excess blood alcohol.

Ngaoa Tukurangi, who represented himself, pleaded guilty to the two charges in the Criminal Court at Avarua on Thursday.

On September 19, Tukurangi crashed his motorbike at Rutaki when he hit a traffic cone at 2am.

Tukurangi was close to three times over the legal blood alcohol limit.

Justice of the Peace Nadine Newham fined Tukurangi $100 for careless driving and $350 for excess blood alcohol.

The JP also asked for reparation costs for the $150 blood test and $50 court costs. Tukurangi is disqualified from driving for 12 months.