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Allegations of Abuse
in NZ |
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Tea Ropati - League Star accused
of rape |
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Otago Daily Times AUCKLAND: The jury hearing six sex
charges against former Kiwi rugby league player Tea Ropati will resume their
deliberations in Auckland District Court today. The jurors retired at 1pm
yesterday to consider their verdicts and about 5.30pm indicated to Judge Phil
Gittos that they would not be able to complete their task by last night. The judge acknowledged that they
had had a tiring day and said they should adjourn at 6pm and return to court this
morning. The jury of seven men and five
women asked two questions during the course of the afternoon. The first was for an explanation
of the law relating to charges of attempting to commit an offence. The second, much later in the day,
was a possible indicator that the jury was making slow progress. They asked what procedure they
should adopt in their deliberations and what order they should consider the
charges. Judge Gittos said such issues were
up to them to decide. Ropati (42) has denied three
charges of sexual violation, including one count of rape, and three charges
of attempted sexual violation. The charges arose from incidents
at a Ponsonby bar and at Victoria Park in the early hours of June 15, 2006,
involving a female complainant who was 36 at the time. The Crown argued Ropati took
advantage of the woman, who was so intoxicated she could not have consented
to sexual activity with him. The defence denied a rape occurred
because Ropati stopped short of having full sex with the woman as he felt
guilty on account of his wife and that the sexual activity that did take
place was consensual. In closing arguments, defence
counsel Gary Gotlieb asked the jury to consider how Ropati would have known
that the complainant was in the state of intoxication the Crown had argued
she was. He said Ropati would not have been
aware the woman had been drinking elsewhere for six hours before the pair met
and Ropati had not plied her with alcohol in the bar. He pointed to the testimony of one
of her friends that she was ‘‘stringing her sentences perfectly okay’’ and to
the fact bar staff were happy to continue serving her. Mr Gotlieb said the evidence
showed the complainant was a woman who knew what she wanted. She was not a teenager, but ‘‘an
in-your-face young middleaged person who knows her own mind’’. ‘‘This is a woman who knows how to
look after herself,’’ he said. ‘‘She’s a big girl and she’s
embarrassed about what happened.’’ Crown prosecutor Phil Hamlin
agreed the woman had been flirting and laughing with Ropati in the bar. But she later became sleepy and
unresponsive when the pair went to a back room where some of the alleged
sexual offending took place. Mr Hamlin said all the evidence
presented in court pointed to consent not being given. The woman remembered being woken
up by pain in Ropati’s car in Victoria Park, where the alleged rape took
place, with Ropati’s ‘‘angry’’ face above her. Mr Hamlin said examination of her
genital area showed blunt force trauma inconsistent with consensual sex. |
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