Three News
April 28 2008; 15:40
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.