"I've just come out of jail - for bashing someone."
That's how 22-year-old Paora Tahau claims he introduced himself to a young woman he met in West Quay Napier bar the Thirsty Whale - an hour or two before he is alleged to have raped her in the women's toilets.
Defence lawyer Scott Jefferson told the Napier District Court yesterday the sex was consensual after kissing and cuddling between the two, captured in images from 40 cameras throughout the bar.
He suggested the two charges of rape and one of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, to which Tahau pleaded not guilty, stemmed from "post-coital regret" on the part of the complainant, who was aged 20 at the time.
Crown prosecutor Fiona Cleary told Judge Geoff Rea and the jury of nine women and three men it happened about 2.30am on February 19. The pair met for the first time when she and her two friends were joined by Tahau and his friends about three hours earlier.