Alan Duff, who wrote Once Were Warriors, denied being aggressive with a policewoman, who had stopped him for speeding, at a court hearing on a charge of resisting arrest, news reports said on Wednesday. ( dpa )
"I might have been ranting, but there is a difference between ranting and being aggressive," Duff told the Taupo court on Tuesday, when he pleaded not guilty to failing to stop for police and resisting arrest.
Duff, 57, angrily rejected police evidence that he swung the policewoman into the road by her handcuffs after she put the manacles on him, the Dominion Post said.
Police said Duff abused the officer, who chased him for 3 kilometres after he drove off while she was giving him a speeding ticket last September, and hit her police car twice.
He told the court he would fight the allegations with every last breath of his body, adding, "I'm sitting here flabbergasted that all of you should want to concoct a case about me to try and put a good man down."
The hearing will resume on May 15.
Duff's 1990 novel Once Were Warriors stunned the country with its brutal depiction of family violence in the ethnic Maori community and was made into a graphic movie.
