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Allegations of Abuse
in NZ |
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Tea Ropati - League Star accused
of rape |
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http://nz.news.yahoo.com/080122/3/3ok1.html Yahoo xtra News A woman who alleges she was raped
by former Kiwi rugby league player Tea Ropati said today that an
"honourable man" would have sent her home in a taxi because she was
so drunk. In Auckland District Court,
Ropati, 42, has denied six sex charges, including one of rape, arising from
events at a bar and at a park in the early hours of June 15, 2006. The Crown case is that the woman
had had too much alcohol to have been able to consent to any sexual
connection, but the defence has argued that she was a willing partner. In cross-examination on the second
day of the trial, defence counsel Gary Gotlieb asked the woman how Ropati
would have known that what was happening was not consensual. "I was in no position to
consent, I had had too much alcohol," she said. "Any honourable man would
have put me in a taxi and sent me home." Asked if Ropati had failed the
test of an honourable man, the woman replied: "Beyond that, he's a
rapist." The woman said she could not
recall any of the alleged sexual activity at The Whiskey bar in inner city
Ponsonby because of her level of intoxication. She remembered waking suddenly in
Ropati's car in nearby Victoria Park and being in pain, while Ropati's
"angry, twisted face" was above her. Mr Gotlieb suggested that she must
still have been aware of what was happening at the bar as she had bought five
rounds of drinks using her eptpos card, for which she needed to enter her
pin. "I was functioning, but
drunk," she said. The woman's sister-in-law told the
court the complainant arrived home about 3am distressed. "She was just sobbing,
sobbing, sobbing and saying, `Something bad has happened to me'," the
sister-in-law said. While the complainant's brother
went to call the police, the sister-in-law held her. "She couldn't even stand
up," she said. "I helped her to her bed and
she rolled into a ball. She had full on panics. She did not calm down at all.
In some parts she was not making sense." The trial continues. |
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