A teen boy has been on trial in the Youth Court at Tauranga this week, charged with sexually violating his friend's young sister. Photo / Hannah Bartlett
Warning: This story deals with allegations of the sexual assault of a child and may be distressing.
A teenage boy has denied sexually violating his friend’s primary-aged sister, telling the prosecutor he is “telling the truth”.
However, he did accept that on “one or two occasions” he was in her bedroom alone with her while she painted his face.
The teen is accused of the rape and indecent assault of the girl, who told the court that he would offer her lollies if she would let him “put his penis in her ’gina” and they would kiss lying down.
She said it would happen in her room, under a trampoline, or behind some bushes on the Bay of Plenty property where she lived.
She made disclosures after her mother became increasingly concerned about the girl’s behaviour, including sexualised behaviour, an increasing interest in anatomy books and irritation of her genital area.
After the mother spoke to her, and offered guidance that “private parts” aren’t to be touched by others, the girl told her mother her brother’s friend had done things to her.
The teen, who has statutory name suppression, has been in a judge-alone trial before Judge Paul Geoghegan in the Youth Court this week.
He denies there was any inappropriate or sexual contact between him and the girl, and said their interactions mostly involved bouncing on the trampoline together while he waited for his friend to “finish his chores”, or when all three would play hide and seek.
The teen recalled “one or two” occasions, which he said were initiated by the girl, when he went into her room so she could “paint his face”.
He remembered one instance when the girl’s mum had opened the door and seen his face had been painted by the girl, and he said she seemed to find it “funny”.
The mother gave evidence to say she had “caught” the boy in her daughter’s room between four and six times, and recalled one instance when the girl had been drawing on the teen’s face.
On Tuesday, the girl’s father gave evidence and said he too had seen the boy in the girl’s room on three separate occasions, and said his frustration had grown as he repeated the instruction to the pair that doors were to be kept open.
He said the family had tried to stick to a general rule that doors were kept open.
However, there had been occasions, which he described as a developing “habit”, where the boy and girl had been alone in the girl’s bedroom with the door locked.
At first, he had “not been sure what to make of it”, he said, but hadn’t thought there was cause for concern regarding someone of his son’s age.
The last time he’d seen them in there was after he observed the bedroom blind was closed while he was outside.
He went inside, opened the door and saw his daughter sitting on the boy’s lap, facing him, and applying either paint or make-up to the teen.
He’d become angry, told them to get outside and said words to the effect of “get out of the f***ing room”, as he felt the “irritation” of a father who was “not being listened to” regarding his repeated open-door instruction.
He retreated to the kitchen and the pair left the room with his daughter uttering a “sorry, Dad” as they went outside.
Defence lawyer Steve Franklin asked the father, under cross-examination, if he had seen any “sexual activity” occurring when he walked into the room.
The father said he had not and confirmed the pair had clothing on.
“You saw faces painted, and that was the explanation that was given?” Franklin asked.
“Correct,” the father replied.
He was also asked about how many times he’d seen them in the bedroom, as in his statement to police he’d told them of two occasions, while in his evidence in court he said there had been three.
He said there had been three, and in addition to those instances, he recalled a time when he and the girl’s mother had seen the bedroom blind closed from the outside of the house, and he had let the mother go in to “deal with it” while he went off to do other jobs on the property.
There was evidence about the boys’ friendship, their outdoor pursuits and activities, and the movements of family members around the property as they did chores.
While the defence seemed to suggest this meant the locations of alleged assaults would have been “extraordinarily risky”, because anyone could turn up at any point and there were lines of sight or proximity, the witnesses suggested they were out of sight of the main areas of activity.
The boy said he could not remember the father ever walking into the bedroom, nor becoming angry about him and the girl being behind a closed door.
When asked by prosecutor Richard Jenson about the times he was in the girl’s bedroom, the boy said he couldn’t remember whether the blinds were closed and the door locked, because he “wasn’t worried” and “hadn’t looked”.
He couldn’t remember where they were sitting, but said the girl had been next to him and painted his face from side-on.
During re-examination, the teen’s lawyer asked if the girl had actually been facing him when applying paint or make-up to his face, and he said yes.
Jenson asked: “You didn’t think there was any problem being alone in [the girl’s] bedroom?”
“No,” the boy replied, “because she was painting my face.”
Jenson put to him there had been a “number of times” he’d been alone with the girl and hadn’t been able to “control himself sexually”.
“No,” the boy replied.
“You’ve touched her and had sex with her?” Jenson asked.
“No, I’m telling the truth to you,” the teen said.
Jenson suggested the boy had realised he could have sexual contact with the girl in “a brief window of time and no one would come upon you and find you”.
The boy denied this.
He faces five charges, which include three of sexual violation by rape and two of indecent assault. There were initially six, but on the second day of the trial, one was withdrawn by leave as it was an administrative holding charge.
Judge Geoghegan reserved his decision.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.