New Zealand citizen Mark Keyte pressured woman into changing police statement about alleged assault

The son of a professional polo player could be sent back to New Zealand after he pressured a woman into changing a statement she made to police about an alleged assault.

Mark Keyte (not pictured), 39, was sentenced at Ballarat County Court for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Photo: File

The son of a professional polo player faces the prospect of deportation after pressuring a woman he allegedly assaulted into changing her statement to police.

New Zealand citizen Mark David Frank Keyte, 39, appeared at Ballarat County Court by video on Tuesday having pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The court heard that in May 2022, a woman spoke with police about Keyte’s allegedly being violent towards her.

The conversation was recorded.

However, on instructions from Keyte, the woman on several occasions afterwards tried to withdraw her complaint.

In July 2022, she went to the police station and asked to retract her recorded evidence, providing a letter which said, falsely, that she had been in a drug-induced psychosis and was injured falling down some stairs and running through bushes.

She said as part of her retraction that she had been under the influence of a cocktail of drugs when giving the evidence and that was ashamed of having made a false statement.

Keyte messaged the woman and said: “You never do what is asked of you. You just do whatever the f--k you want.”

The woman called to change her statement again just 25 minutes after signing the previous one, maintaining she had made a false allegation.

When Keyte was interviewed, he said his phone’s messenger application had been hacked and denied coercing the woman into taking back her evidence.

The court heard Keyte came to Australia when he was four and had little connection to his former country.

He played polo — a family pastime — from age five and learned to train horses, but suffered a knee injury at 20 which prevented him from continuing in the sport professionally.

Keyte worked at a Queensland cattle station, on an oil rig, as a concreter, and at his family’s polo club.

He was convicted, fined, and sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment already served.