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Allegations of Sexual
Abuse |
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The Supreme Court has
refused to hear an appeal over the alleged breaching of the "rape
shield" rules in the case of one of four men convicted of raping a woman
in Mt Maunganui in 1989. Mt Maunganui
businessman Peter Mana McNamara, 47, had alleged that the prosecutor at his
trial in the High Court at Wellington nearly a year ago had broken rules about
commenting on the sexual experience or reputation of a sex-case complainant. The prosecutor had
asked the jury if she was the type of woman who would have agreed to have
group sex with comparative strangers in a hut. The Court of Appeal had
dismissed McNamara's appeal against his conviction and sentence, and
yesterday the Supreme Court refused to let him have a second appeal on the
"rape shield" point. The rape shield law was
intended to protect complainants being attacked about their sexual history with
anyone but the person accused of committing offences against them. The Supreme Court said
that any further appeal in McNamara's case was bound to fail as there was
plainly no breach of the rape shield rules in his case. The court said the
prosecutor's remarks reflected what was implicit in the cases the Crown and
the defence presented about the circumstances in which the rapes were said to
have happened. McNamara is serving
seven years' jail for rape and abduction. Another man, Tauranga
fireman Warren Graham Hales, 41, faces a retrial later this year after a
successful appeal against his conviction on rape and abduction charges
relating to the same case. The Court of Appeal
dismissed the appeals of the two other men who stood trial with Hales and McNamara
and whose names are suppressed. |
