|
Allegations of Abuse
in NZ |
|
|
peterellis Home / abuse allegations / Peter Stewart Peter Stewart - News
Reports - Page 1 |
|
|
The Press "Fuelled by fantasy, ignited
by envy, motivated by money. Don't you think that's what all this is
about?" A jury in the High Court in
Christchurch will today consider that question when it retires to deliberate
on 12 historical sex charges against a prominent Canterbury man. The question was put to the jury
by defence counsel Jonathan Eaton at the end of his closing address in the
trial, which begins its ninth day today. The man is accused of getting the
complainant to do indecent acts on him when she was under 12 and of raping
and sodomising her when she was between about 13 and 17. The charges relate to events
between 1967 and 1977. Eaton told the jury yesterday that
as a young schoolgirl, the complainant found she could always get a reaction
by chattering about her fantasy of having sexual activity with the accused. Then in 2004 she was down on her
luck and, envious of the accused's wife, the fantasy was repackaged as rape
and paedophilia and "boy does that get a reaction". As she faced consistent denials
from his client, she counterpunched with more allegations to put more
pressure on his client and to bolster her push for money. However, Crown counsel Philip
Shamy told the jury the complainant's allegations should be regarded as
"the peeling of an onion". Several witnesses had told the
court of her telling them as a 13 to 14-year-old about the sexual activity
with the accused and, if it was a fantasy sex life, would she have told a
friend about sodomy? If she was making false
accusations she could not have picked worse locations for her fabrications
and she would have made sure "to get it right" rather than give her
sometimes inconsistent accounts. She had gained nothing from making
the allegations other than four days in the witness box having her life raked
over. As a girl, the complainant was in
love with the accused and "the saddest thing about this case" was
the way he had manipulated and used that love. As a girl, she saw the accused
as her Prince Charming and he saw her as the "perfect victim". While the accused took risks,
people consumed with lust often did. His risk was significantly reduced by
his control of the victim. The spark in the current case had
been her anger at the accused brazenly suggesting in 2003 they have sex in
the back of her workplace. "If anything was going to
make her angry that was it." Eaton said the jury would have to
feel very uncomfortable about the reliability of the complainant's testimony,
which was riddled with inconsistencies and outrageous allegations. A worrying feature of her
allegations was the fact many of them had not surfaced until two years after
she first went to the police in 2004. When challenged about changing
important details in her story, she was flippant and off-hand. First going to the police in 2004,
she had four years to get her story straight yet when she gave evidence of
the sodomy, for example, she said it could be any time in a 10-year period
and she could not say where she was living. It beggared belief how his client
could have got away with having sex with the complainant, then a schoolgirl,
in the situations she alleged -- on a picnic table in a rest area in broad
daylight, when she was wearing a blow-up splint after a skiing accident or on
a vanity unit in a busy household. Justice Panckhurst will sum up
today. |
