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Allegations
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Four men have been
found guilty in the pack rape trial at the High Court in Wellington. The jury took 12 hours
to deliver guilty verdicts on the abduction and rape charges for all four
accused, in relation to the rape of a woman in Mount Maunganui in 1989. Name suppression has
been lifted for two of the men - Peter Mana McNamara, 46, a business manager
from Mt Maunganui and Warren Graham Hales, a 40-year-old firefighter from
Papamoa. The other two men,
whose names and occupations remain suppressed, were acquitted on a separate
charge, of sexually violating the complainant with an object. Jurors spent more than
two weeks hearing evidence and submissions from the Crown and defence lawyers
for the four men accused of raping the woman. The complainant said
she was duped into going for a lunch date only to find herself raped by five
men, one of whom remains unidentified. Defence lawyers said
the woman was lying and the sex was consensual. After the verdict there
was a huge outpouring of emotion from the public gallery with family members
of the accused bursting into tears. The accused are to be
sentenced on August 5. |
