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Allegations of Sexual
Abuse in NZ |
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A Wellington woman who falsely
claimed she had been abducted and sexually assaulted has been sentenced to
community work. Police diverted 18 officers and
spent 127 hours before Ashika Kamani Kalpana, 26, unemployed, admitted she
invented her knifepoint abduction and attack by a carload of men. Wellington District Court judge
Mike Behrens QC was told yesterday her fragile mental condition and
psychiatric history led to her false complaint. Kalpana had pleaded guilty to
trying to pervert the course of justice. She had removed her clothing in
the Wilton bush reserve car park on May 15 and run screaming toward traffic. Members of the public stopped and
called police. A police dog was used to search the scene, which was cordoned
off, and the scene guarded. Kalpana was taken to a medical centre to be
examined. Witnesses were interviewed. Interviewed by police, Kalpana
said she was abducted at knifepoint, indecently assaulted, recaptured when
she ran away, and assaulted again before managing to flee. She identified her
alleged abductors. Two days later she told police she
had made up the complaint because she was angry with a lack of response by
police on complaints she and her boyfriend had made about being harassed. Kalpana's lawyer Sandy Baigent
told the judge her client had adjustment disorder and post-traumatic stress
disorder. On the night she felt anxious and powerless. She felt driven by the
harassment, "a distressed confused woman acting in a desperate and
dysfunctional way". She said Kalpana felt unsafe and
it was her way of getting the police to help her. She had not thought about
the effect of her complaint on the police or anyone else and wanted to
apologise. Judge Behrens sentenced Kalpana to
300 hours' community work and ordered her to pay $273.20 in reparations. He
said her bizarre behaviour could be attributed to her mental state. The judge took the unusual step of
allowing publication of her name or a photograph of her, but not both. |
