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The Southland Times
February 28, 2002
Woman staged break-in, faked rape, judge decides
An Invercargill woman staged a break-in of her
house, injured herself and made a false allegation of rape to police, Judge
David Holderness found in the Invercargill District Court yesterday.
A 36-year-old student, who has been granted interim name suppression, was
convicted of making a false complaint and remanded until March 28 for
sentence.
"My overriding impression is that she may well need help and that some
appropriate report might assist the court in that regard," Judge
Holderness said. "On that basis, a psychological report would be
appropriate."
Judge Holderness found the woman's story that two men had broken in through
the back door of her house, tried to force her to take an overdose of
medication, hit her and raped her in the bathroom could not be substantiated.
Video surveillance of the property showed no one approached or entered the
rear of the house during the relevant period on June 19 last year.
A police dog was unable to find any track from the property and there were no
apparent footprints. A board in the back door could be seen on the video
having been removed from the inside.
Earlier yesterday under cross-examination, the woman said she still recalled
her attackers entering through the back door of the house. "If they're
not on the DVD...I must have let them in," she said.
"It's the only other way they could have got into the house."
Police prosecutor Sergeant Alan Christie then alluded to the heavy security
the woman used in her house. "In your words, you live in Colditz.
"To accept the possibility that you let two balaclava-clad men into your
house is quite frankly absurd, isn't it?" The woman said the order of
events was confused.
She had to accept there was no evidence of the men coming in through the back
even though, in her own memory, she was adamant they had. "I have to
live with the possibility that I was stupid enough to let them in and that's
not nice," she said.
"I know I was raped. They got in somehow." In his summing up, Judge
Holderness said he was unable to accept that if the woman had let the men
into the house, the subsequent events would have unfolded in the same
sequence as she had described in great detail.
Her original statement to police amounted to 48 handwritten pages. That she
had omitted to tell police one of her attackers had identified himself to her
was "strange, if not inexplicable."
Throughout the trial her overriding concern had been that police should do
all they could to catch the alleged offenders.
In earlier evidence she said she had laid a rape complaint in 1998 but, after
a seven-month inquiry, police had not laid charges even though she had been
able to name her attackers in that incident.
"I have no reason to trust the Invercargill police force after this
experience," she said. She was relying on DNA evidence to identify the
offenders this time.
Judge Holderness said he found this reasoning "very difficult to
understand." The findings of the ESR scientists did not rule out a rape
by two intruders but they were by no means conclusively supportive of the
allegation. They were equally consistent with the police allegation that the
woman had staged a break-in and rape, he said.
The totality of the police evidence had led him to a view that had not been
reached lightly. "Her testimony is neither credible or reliable,"
he said.
Suppression orders regarding witnesses and the men alleged by the woman to
have attacked her were made final. Continued suppression of the woman's name
would be reviewed at sentencing when any report recommendations or
submissions would be heard.
In closing, Judge Holderness took the unusual step of complimenting and
thanking Mr Christie and defence lawyer Phil McDonald for the professional
way they conducted themselves throughout what had been an "unusual and
difficult matter."
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