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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Wellington: I am
reliving this event as I sit here, a woman who alleges she was pack-raped at
Mount 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 the then 24-year-old man had been 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. However, the man she
liked was not the only one in the building and the then 20-yearold woman
alleges five men took turns raping her. Four of those men are
on trial after the woman now aged 37 and living in Australia with her
husband and three children lodged a complaint with police in April 2004.
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 group sex and deny she was restrained. 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 instead of helping
her, the woman alleges he came inside after the other men had left the
building and raped her as well. The man had been
nervous, she told the court. 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 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 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 suppressed. When shown an object
similar to the one allegedly used on her, the woman broke down and the court
was briefly adjourned. The woman agreed the
24-year-old man had not appeared threatening and her restraints had been
removed by the time he entered the building. There was nothing to
prevent you from closing your legs and sitting up, Ms Adams said. Youre 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 he remembered lying in a loving embrace with the woman
after consensual sex. [He] raped me, the
woman said. The man would also give
evidence he had seen the woman at a Crowded House concert a week later and
she had been friendly, even running her hand along his back or buttocks. Ive never been to a
Crowded House concert, the woman replied. The trial before a jury
of four men and eight women continues today. |
