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The Press
March 8, 2003
Rape complaint false
by David Clarkson
A 20-year-old Australian woman got a dressing down from Christchurch District
Court Judge Michael Green for making a false complaint that she had been
raped.
He suppressed her name but warned her that if she did it again -- "...
and it seems likely that you might," he said -- she could not expect
suppression a second time.
Defence counsel Andrew McKenzie had put forward medical reports from her
doctor and a psychiatrist about her condition, but Judge Green said he did
not accept that her psychiatric difficulties were an excuse for her
behaviour.
She had admitted the charge of making a false rape complaint to a Lyttelton
policeman on February 17.
Sergeant Mike Johnson said that since her arrival in New Zealand in December to join
her parents, who now live here, the woman had made allegations of sexual
assaults to various agencies, including the police.
She travelled to Lyttelton on the bus, and when she got off she asked the
driver for directions to the police station. She went straight there and
alleged that she had been raped by two Asian men.
He said her story was not confirmed by video surveillance equipment in the
area, and she admitted she had made it up.
Mr McKenzie said her complaint had not targeted any specific men, and no-one
had been questioned or arrested as a result.
But Judge Green told the woman: "False claims of rape do a disservice to
all the other women who unfortunately have been raped. There is an
impression, of course, that most complaints of rape are indeed false. By
doing this you perpetuate something which is untrue and do a disservice to
every other female who has suffered at the hands of someone else.
"And you do it for your own satisfaction."
He fined her $750.
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