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Allegations of Abuse
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A woman, who says she was raped by
a Northland policeman nearly 20 years ago, said in cross examination today
she never called her accused "a naughty little policeman" during
the alleged incident. The 63-year-old woman, who cannot
be named, has been giving evidence in Auckland District Court on the second
day of a jury trial of the former policeman, now aged 44. The accused faces eight charges,
including four of sexual violation by rape. Defence lawyer Gary Gotlieb
suggested to the woman that she willingly entered the police station in the
middle of the night in March 1988 with the accused and had consensual sex
with him. "(The accused) says you took
your pantihose off in the car and walked into the police station..then you
consensually had sex on the desk and then on the floor," Mr Gotlieb
said. The complainant said this was
wrong : "I was raped over the desk, then I was raped lying on the
floor." "It was not consensual sex.
It was rape," she said. Mr Gotlieb said to the complainant
she then asked the accused to put handcuffs on her while they were on the
floor and told him he was "a naughty little policeman". The woman told Mr Gotlieb she
would never use such a phrase. "I think this is someone
else's fantasy, not mine," she said. Earlier today the woman said when
she arrived home that night she took all her clothes off and bathed herself. "I felt very dirty. I sat in
some very hot water and washed myself," she said. When a friend arrived, she told
him she could not talk about what had happened. He asked her if the policeman
had raped her. "I said yes." The woman told the court her
friend noticed bruising on her wrists. "He said 'the bastard' and
got very upset," she said. She later complained to police
about the incident and was told after she had been interviewed that the
accused policeman had "admitted everything". "I felt very, very reassured.
I felt I could go to sleep," she told the court. During her evidence the
complainant said when she finally gave a statement to police three months
later and signed it she was told a full investigation would follow. "I was relieved something was
going to happen." She said she was shocked to hear
the man she said raped her was still in uniform and still working when she
had believed he had resigned and was facing a criminal conviction. She also learnt that the accused
policeman had not confessed, as another policeman had told her. Mr Gotlieb showed the woman her
signed 14-page statement from June 1988 and asked her to confirm everything
was correct. She said the document was 6-pages
less than the original. The woman said because she had
been lied to by police up until that point she was "extremely
distrustful" of them and noted in her diary at the time the statement
was 20 pages long. Judge Michael Lance refused an
application from Television New Zealand to publish the accused man's name. He said he would be prepared to
consider an application for permanent suppression of the man's name. He said
the order suppressing the accused man's name until the end of the trial was
unusual but so was the case. The trial was expected to last
five days. |
