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Allegations
of Sexual Abuse |
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Jury expected to begin
deliberations on Monday Wellington: A jury is
being asked to consider if a woman who says she was pack-raped 16 years ago
was really a victim, or whether she was a willing woman who could not cope
with her memories. In the High Court at
Wellington yesterday, prosecutor Mark Zarifeh said the account of two of the
men that the woman was involved with both of them at the same time was “some
kind of porno fantasy”. The Crown said it was a
callous pack rape. Defence lawyer Paul
Mabey, QC, said it could be that she took part in something she regretted and
could not live with any longer. Her detailed
recollection of the men’s bodies could be the observations of a 20-year-old
woman who desired and liked what she saw, Mr Mabey said. Four men, aged 40, 46,
47, and 53, are charged with holding the woman against her will for sex, and
raping her. One of the men faces an extra rape charge and he and another man
each face two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection. They
have pleaded not guilty. The charges are the
result of an incident in Mt Maunganui in January 1989. The woman complained
to police in April last year. Key details have been
suppressed, including the names of the men. The woman said she had
fancied one of the men and asked a go-between to arrange a lunch date, but
instead she was taken to a hut where five men raped her. The defence says the
woman suggested the sexual encounter and her hands were never bound as she
said they were, and she was not violated with an object, as she alleged. Mr Zarifeh said the defence
was the stuff of pulp fiction, portraying the woman as a slut who welcomed
sex with the men in sleazy circumstances. The scenario beggared
belief, he said. He said she was a
compelling and reliable witness who had no plausible reason to make a false
complaint. However, Mr Mabey said
the woman agreed she did not have injuries the jury might expect of someone
who suffered the kind of forceful acts alleged. Even her account of being silent,
obedient and compliant did not tally with descriptions of her as a strong,
assertive individual. For another accused,
Bill Nabney said it was only due to the defence that the jury had seen the
most significant piece of physical evidence in the case - the hut in which
the incident happened. The small building gave
the lie to the woman’s claim that her hands were bound around a wooden piece
of the hut. It contained nothing like her description, Mr Nabney said. The third defence
lawyer, Tony Balme, said the woman had consensual sex, but could not cope
with the memory and so reconstructed and distorted it in her mind over the
years. Mr Balme’s client had
spoken openly about the event to several people, always portraying it as
consensual. It would have been incredible for him to have talked as he did if
it had been rape, Mr Balme said. The jury is due to
begin considering its verdicts on Monday after hearing the fourth defence
lawyer’s address, and the judge’s summing up. |
