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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse in NZ |
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The 15-year-old
complainant and a another witness in an under-age sex case in the Dunedin
District Court were both declared hostile when they said their earlier
accounts of the younger girl’s involvement with 28-year old Stephen Joseph
Walker were not true. Walker has denied
having sexual intercourse with the complainant at Rakaia on or about July 10
last year and on more than one other occasion in Dunedin between July 11 and
the end of August. He was then 27 and the girl 14. His counsel, Anne
Stevens, said the defence case was that the girl liked Walker and wanted to
go out with him and have sex, but by the end of August, she did not like him
and a complaint was made to the police. Crown counsel Robin
Bates told the jurors the question for them would be one of credibility, the
issue being whether the events, as alleged, happened. The 15-year-old
complainant gave evidence she met Walker at a friend’s house last year. She denied she and
Walker had sex when they were at the Rakaia Holiday Camp with Jolleen Askerud
and her boyfriend last July. She and the accused shared a cabin, but it had
single bunks. She slept in the bottom bunk, Walker in the top. Declared hostile by the
court, the complainant was crossexamined by Mr Bates about differences between
her evidence and what she had said earlier in a video-taped statement. She
agreed she recalled saying she and Walker had sex at Rakaia and several more
times in Dunedin but those statements were not true, she said. She was not frightened
and had not been threatened, she told Mr Bates. Asked about telling a
police officer she had taken a knife to school last year for protection
against Walker, the girl said Walker had not threatened her. He had
threatened her brother. Cross-examined by Mrs
Stevens, the girl agreed she used to like Walker but by the end of August he
had told her to “get lost”. She had not been “brassed off” about it, she
said. It was her mother who
made the complaint, making her go to the police. “I didn’t want to,” the girl
said. Agreeing she had lied,
she said did not know why she had lied to the police. She had not realised
how serious the matter was. Jolleen Askerud (20)
said she and her partner invited the girl and Walker to travel to
Christchurch last July. She and her partner stayed in a cabin at Rakaia with
a double bunk, Walker and the girl in a cabin with single bunks. After returning from
the local hotel and going to bed, she did not see Walker again that night, Ms
Askerud said. He had not come to her cabin and asked her partner for condoms.
Declared hostile at the
request of the Crown, the witness was tearful under cross examination by Mr
Bates. But she said she was not crying because she did not like lying. She said she had told
the police about Walker asking for condoms but that was not the truth. The witness agreed that
she had lied under oath at the preliminary hearing. Another witness,
Douglas McGhie, said the complainant had stayed at his flat on occasion, once
in a room occupied by Walker. Walker and the girl
told him separately they had had sexual intercourse, Mr McGhie said. He agreed he had
nothing to do with Walker any more. In his closing, Mr
Bates said although the complainant and Ms Askerud had been declared hostile,
there was sufficient indirect evidence for the jurors to find the charges
proved. There was
circumstantial evidence of the parties being at Rakaia, staying at Mr
McGhie’s house and of the relationship. And there was the admission by Walker
to Mr McGhie that there had been sex. Mrs Stevens said the
only evidence in the case was from “two liars” and a person who admitted he
wanted nothing to do with the accused. How can you convict on
that evidence?” she asked, urging the jurors to acquit Walker. The jury will be asked
to reach a verdict today after Judge Gary MacAskill sums up the case. |
