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Allegations of Sexual
Abuse |
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Four men convicted last
year of the pack rape of a woman at Mt Maunganui 17 years ago will have their
appeals heard by the Court of Appeal today. Mt Maunganui
businessman Peter McNamara, Papamoa fireman Warren Hales and two men whose
identities remain suppressed were convicted in July of raping and abducting
the then 20-year-old woman. The two unnamed men
were also convicted of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and one
was convicted of a second rape charge. Both unnamed men were
acquitted of sexually violating the woman with an object, details of which
are suppressed. The four men were
jailed for terms of between five-and-a-half and eight-and-a-half years
following the two-week trial in the High Court at Wellington. The now 37-year-old
woman told the jury the men lured her into a hut on the pretext of having a
lunch date with one of the unnamed men. Once there she was
bound, raped, forced to perform oral sex and brutally violated. The men maintained
throughout the trial the woman had orchestrated consensual group sex and
denied restraining her. The appeal is set down
for two days. |
