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Allegations of Abuse
in NZ |
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Tea Ropati - League Star accused
of rape |
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Three News A jury is expected to today retire to decide if former
Kiwis and Warriors rugby league player Tea Ropati is guilty of raping a woman
he met in an Auckland bar. Ropati has denied six charges of attempted sexual
violation, sexual violation, rape, and sodomy, that allegedly occurred on
June 15, 2006, after he met a woman in the Whiskey Bar in suburban Ponsonby. The prosecution argued Ropati took advantage of the
woman's drunkenness to sexually assault her in the bar, then rape her in a
car in nearby Victoria Park. In his summing up yesterday Crown prosecutor Phil Hamlin
agreed the woman had been flirting and laughing with Ropati in the bar. She later became sleepy and unresponsive when the pair
moved to a back room where some of the alleged sexual offending took place,
he said. The law was clear that consent could not be given if
someone was asleep or unconscious, he said. The woman was so impaired she was not able to consent to
sex and all the evidence presented in court pointed to consent not being
given, he said. Her next memory was of being in Ropati's car with his
"angry face" looming over her. Medical injuries to her genitals showed blunt force trauma
which was not consistent with consensual sex, Mr Hamlin said. The defence will sum up today, before the judge addresses
the jurors who will then retire to consider their verdicts. |
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