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Allegations of Sexual
Abuse in NZ |
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Stuff A claim of rape in the street made
by a 39-year-old woman - described as "rotten" drunk at the time by
the judge - has been thrown out of court after her evidence at the trial of
the teenager she accused. Two days after the July 2006
incident, the woman made a second statement to the police saying she had
consented to the late night sex with a youth she did not know. The consent statement was repeated
in her depositions evidence and the crown proceeded to trial on the basis
that she was too drunk to have given a proper consent, the Christchurch Court
News website reported today. But four-and-a-half hours into the
Christchurch District Court trial of Joshua Allan Schooner in front of Judge
Philip Moran and a jury, prosecutor Brent Stanaway decided the crown would
proceed no further. Judge Moran agreed and discharged
Mr Schooner, now a 21-year-old labourer. He told the court Mr Schooner had
arrived at court as an innocent man, and he left as an innocent man. He said the woman had later
rationalised the sex-in-the-street encounter by saying, "It's not
something I would do. I'm not like that". "When she is sober, she is no
doubt a very proper and moral and well behaved lady, but people do strange
things when they are drunk. She was rotten, and who knows? "We can't run the risk of
letting this man be convicted of a rape charge which in the end is
speculative," Judge Moran said. The woman had told how she regularly
went to the suburban bar and drank heavily with a group of friends. She had
regularly walked home "in drunken states". On that day, she had drunk a
mixture of bourbon, and then wine at home, and then drunk beer in the evening
at the bar. She set off "very, very drunk" for the 20 minute walk
home late at night. She could recall little of the
journey that led to an encounter with Mr Schooner and sex on the concrete
step outside a dentist's surgery in suburban Christchurch. Mr Schooner said in a video
statement to the police that he had been approached by her in the street and
she had "pashed" him. "She wanted me to." He noticed that she was crying as
they sat together afterwards, though she says he ran off straight away. He told the police: "I have
shagged a lot of ladies, but I have never ever raped a chick." The woman told the court she had
not consented and she would not have consented. She had a stoma bag taped on
her stomach at the time because of surgery five months before the incident.
She was embarrassed about it, and did not even let her husband see her body
when the bag was in place. She had married late last year. Defence counsel Michael Knowles
pointed to the second statement she made to police two days after her rape
complaint, in which she said: "I was walking down - Road. A male who was
unknown to me asked me for sex. I agreed by saying yes." At the trial she denied
consenting, and said she was scared and traumatised and did not recall making
that second statement. She said the first thing she recalled of the encounter
was being on the cold concrete step, with a man on top of her, and saying no. She said the man had got off her a
few seconds after she said no. She agreed with Mr Knowles' suggestion she
could not be sure that the man had heard her, because there was traffic
noise. The other defence counsel, Marcus
Zintl, told the court in the opening, that Mr Schooner had stopped the sex as
soon as he realised the woman had withdrawn her consent. Both Mr Schooner and
the woman had been drinking beforehand. "Drunken consent is still
consent even if it is soon regretted afterwards." After the woman's evidence, Mr
Stanaway told the court: "Having regard to the position we have now
reached, and the crown's inability to rebut the defence of consent or
reasonable belief in consent, I accept it is inappropriate for me to proceed
further." Judge Moran told the jury,
"You could not properly convict this young man of rape in the light of
the evidence you have heard. It is certainly my responsibility to take the
charge away from the jury if I reach that view."
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