A text from a defendant’s phone allegedly admitting rape is focus of a Northland trial

A text sent from the phone of a defendant allegedly admitting rape has been the focus of a Northland trial.

WARNING: This article discusses child sex abuse.

A text message sent from a man’s phone allegedly confessing to raping a young girl has become the central piece of evidence in a trial as one lawyer endeavours to shift the blame onto the man’s wife.

A Northland man is currently defending charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, rape of a female aged between 12 and 16, threats to kill and perverting the course of justice in a trial before Judge John McDonald and a jury in Whangārei District Court.

The jury has heard that in late 2020, the defendant’s family and his cousin’s family spent the day at the beach before returning to his home for the evening.

His wife and his cousin went to play the pokies, leaving his niece and her sisters at home with him.

It is the Crown’s case that while he was watching a movie with his niece, he touched her inappropriately and asked if she “wanted to go and do it up in the bedroom”.

The girl told her uncle “no” and that she didn’t like what he was doing to her, but he proceeded to rape her on the couch, the Crown alleged.

The trial was originally set down for 2023 but shortly before it was to begin, the complainant allegedly received a message from the defendant’s Facebook account threatening her not to give evidence.

Further charges were laid and the trial began this week.

On Wednesday, a friend of the defendant said in evidence that he received a text message from the man in early 2021 admitting to the alleged crime.

“I did rape a girl. 12 years old. I have file police report. It my fault, very bad, be honest (sic),” the text allegedly said.

After a lengthy text conversation with the man, he referred the messages to the police who interviewed him the next day.

On Wednesday, the defendant’s wife took the stand and her evidence continued into Thursday.

She testified about a night in early 2023 when she was drinking with her husband and a friend and caught snippets of a conversation between the two.

She said she did not catch all of the conversation but believed her husband used the words “My fault, girl, touch, rape.”

“I was angry, I wanted to know more but he left,” the wife said.

During the woman’s evidence, she answered questions about using her husband’s phone and whether she had her own.

In her evidence-in-chief, she claimed to have not had a phone in 2021 or 2023, stating someone had taken it, and that she shared her husband’s.

But she gave contrary evidence under cross-examination, stating she had not shared a phone with him.

When a production order for her husband’s phone was produced, it showed a login to the woman’s Facebook account and text messages sent from her phone.

But she maintained it had not been her who had sent him the messages.

“Looking through all of this document, I’m not the one who text,” she said.

When defence lawyer Mark Edgar asked her if she had sent the text from her husband’s phone about the rape, she replied “No, I have no idea, the contents make me sick.”

“I did not text.”

“[The defendant] will say you sent the text,” Edgar said to her.

“No, that wasn’t me,” she responded.

It was not only questioning about the phone that the woman gave conflicting evidence about.

She also said she had never met the complainant or the complainant’s mother but later said under cross-examination that she recalled the complainant’s mother being at home, going to play the pokies with her and returning to find the children asleep downstairs and her husband asleep upstairs.

The trial continues.

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.