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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Four men have been sent
for trial on rape and abduction charges after an alleged pack-rape in Mt
Maunganui 15 years ago. The four, their
identities protected by suppression orders made in Tauranga District Court
yesterday by Judge Oke Blaikie, will appear in the High Court at Rotorua next
year to defend charges of rape, sexual violation by unlawful sexual
connection, and abduction. The accused are a
Tauranga man, 46, a Papamoa man, 40, a Mt Maunganui man, 45, and a
52-year-old whose place of residence was suppressed. The men's past and
present occupations, or any evidence that could identify those occupations,
were also suppressed. Police allege a fifth
man was also involved in the pack-rape, but his identity was unknown. They say that in
January 1989, a 20-year-old woman seconded to work in Mt Maunganui for six
weeks was enticed to a building and then sexually assaulted by five men in
what prosecutor Brent Stanaway yesterday described to the court as a
"pack-rape". The Dominion Post was
granted access yesterday to the written evidence of 31 witnesses, including
the alleged victim. The evidence shows the
victim, who now lives in Australia, told police she had got to know two of
her alleged attackers through her job. One had organised a lunchtime date for
her with the other man, whom she had found "very nice looking, very
attractive". When she was taken to a
building to meet him, she found three other men also waiting. In her written
evidence, she said she started to panic as they made her lie on a mattress, bound
her hands to a pole above her head and then took off most of her clothes.
"My heart was in my throat and beating hard and fast. When I looked at
them, they all had weird grins on their faces and all I could think of was a
pack of animals looking at raw meat." She said the men took
turns raping and violating her. The victim said she did
not report the alleged incident as she thought she would be considered in the
wrong because she had organised a date. Just before she moved
to Australia in 1999 she told a friend she had been raped. She eventually
contacted police this year. Lawyers for the accused
conceded there was a prima facie case. Not guilty pleas were entered and the
four were remanded further on bail to appear in the High Court at Rotorua on February
17. |
