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Home / Gisborne Herald

Jury finds man guilty of rape

Gisborne Herald
16 Mar, 2023 11:38 PMQuick Read

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A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl has been found guilty by a jury in Gisborne District Court.

Matthew Harry Norman Davies, 30, went on trial on Monday, pleading guilty at the outset to supplying the girl with cannabis but not guilty to sexually violating her.

The jury deliberated for more than six hours before delivering its guilty verdict at 5.15pm yesterday afternoon.

Judge Warren Cathcart remanded Davies in custody for sentencing on April 30.

The Crown case against Davies relied on the complainant’s evidence.

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She said Davies befriended her on Facebook in 2018 and they private messaged each other for several months before she agreed one night near the end of the year to meet up with him for cannabis.

She sneaked out of her home at about 11pm to meet him at the roadside, where she hoped he would just hand over the drugs so she could get home straight away.

Instead he drove her to a house in

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De Lautour Road where she became almost paralytically stoned, smoking cannabis with him through a “squeezie” bong, a technique with which she was unfamiliar.

He took advantage of her in that state to rape her and afterwards warned her not to tell anyone, the girl said.

At his trial, Davies admitted lying to police by initially denying he knew the girl and by denying he had ever lived at the De Lautour Road house or knew anyone else who had lived there.

He also gave a new account of what happened the night he met up with the girl — one police had not heard ahead of the trial.

While he previously said he simply gave her a ride in his car, at the trial he said he drove her to the De Lautour Road house where he ran inside to get cannabis while she waited out in the car.

They drove to a beach to smoke it, then he dropped her home.

Davies denied anything sexual ever happened between them.

He was not the sort of person to threaten anyone, he said.

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