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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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"I am reliving
this event as I sit here," a woman who alleges she was pack-raped at Mt
Maunganui 16 years ago told the High Court at Wellington yesterday. "You have no idea
what I am going through right now. I feel like I am back there." Testifying for the
third day, the woman faced questions from defence lawyer Rachael Adams, whose
client has been described as a younger, unwilling party to the gang-rape. The woman has told the
court that a then 24-year-old man was on the balcony of an empty building she
had been lured to in January 1989 on the promise of a date with a man with
whom she believed she shared a mutual attraction. But the man she liked
was not the only one in the building, and five men took turns raping her,
says the woman, who was 20 at the time. Four of those men are
on trial after the woman - now 37 and living in Australia with her husband and
three children - lodged a complaint with police in April last year. The fifth
man has never been identified. The men, who are
charged with rape and abduction, admit having sex with the woman but say it
was consensual and deny restraining her. Court suppression
orders prevent identification of the men or their past and present
occupations. The woman has said she
made eye contact with the man on the balcony, who was watching through the
window, in a silent plea for him to help her. But the woman alleges he came
inside after the other men had left and raped her as well. In her statement to
police, the woman said she told the man, "You may as well because the
rest of you have all had a go". The woman denied a suggestion
by Ms Adams that the words encouraged the man. Justice Ronald Young
asked Ms Adams to read the next few lines of the statement. "I was sobbing at
that stage," the statement read. "I said this to
him because I just wanted to get it finished and get out. It was not a
statement of consent in any way or form." The woman alleges that
over a period of an hour-and-a-half she was restrained, raped, forced to
perform oral sex and brutally violated by one man with his fingers and
another with a large object. Details of that object are also suppressed. When shown a similar
object, the woman broke down and the court was briefly adjourned. The woman agreed that
the 24-year-old man, who she had thought was about 19, had not appeared
threatening and her restraints had been removed by the time he came in from
the balcony. "There was nothing
to prevent you from closing your legs and sitting up," Ms Adams said. "You're telling me
there was nothing to prevent me from closing my legs?" the woman asked. "I had just been
raped by four men. I had been raped repeatedly with [the object]. "I was not
physically able to sit up or protect myself from anyone, let alone an
unwilling teenager." Ms Adams said her
client would testify that he remembered lying in a loving embrace with the
woman after consensual sex. The man would also say that he had seen the woman
at a Crowded House concert a week later and she had been friendly. "I've never been
to a Crowded House concert," the woman replied. The trial continues
today. |
