Stuff
April 28 2008

Sex attack and murder or natural death - jury's choice
NZPA

A jury must decide whether a 10-year-old girl's death was caused by a catastrophic collapse from an overwhelming infection, or suffocation during a brutal sexual violation.

The crown says Charlene Makaza was sexually attacked in her bed by her uncle, 56-year-old George Evans Gwaze, and found there in a state of collapse early next day.

But the defence says the crown's evidence can all be explained or discounted. Defence counsel Jonathan Eaton told the jury today in his opening statement at the High Court in Christchurch that the choice they had to decide on in the three-week trial was "very, very serious crime, or natural causes".

Gwaze appeared before Justice Lester Chisholm and a jury today to plead not guilty to two charges of sexual violation of his niece, and her murder in January 2007.

Crown prosecutor Chris Lange said the crown would call evidence from family members, medical staff who attended Charlene, medical experts and police.

He said medical evidence would be that the injuries to the girl's vagina and anal area were consistent with the trauma and penetration of a sexual attack.

The jury would be told that she had suffered an event in which the supply of oxygen and blood was inadequate to maintain the function of her vital organs.

The pathologist would say he could find no evidence of the onset of a long-standing infection in the brain. In his opinion, the anal and genital injuries could not be explained by any natural condition and could not be the result of some unreported accidental injury.

The crown contends Charlene was suffocated when she was the victim of a painful sexual assault that would have made her cry out.

It points to a scientific finding of Gwaze's semen on the crotch of the underwear she was wearing, after the clothing and bedding had been washed after it was soiled during Charlene's collapse.

But Mr Eaton said the washing had been all put in together and the defence contended there had been contamination which caused the minute trace of semen to be found on the girl's underwear.

He said Charlene had been a sickly child who was HIV-positive and had become extremely unwell.

The health professionals who saw her at first regarded her systems as being attacked by an overwhelming infection. It was only after she had been receiving treatment for six hours that the serious anal injury was discovered "and all hell broke loose".

He said the crown was putting forward a "speculative theory" about what happened.

The crown was saying she had been attacked in this way in her bed, when she was lying asleep next to a 20-year-old who was also asleep and heard nothing.

He also asked the jury to consider how Gwaze could possibly behave in such an horrific and animalistic manner to a young child.