A FORMER Dargaville Intermediate School teacher plied two teenage girls with alcohol before raping and sexually assaulting one of them, the Whangarei District Court has been told.
Richard Michael Calder, 38, is standing trial before Judge John McDonald and a jury of eight men and three women on eight charges relating to a 14-year-old girl.
Calder faces three charges that on or about January 24, 2007, in the Baylys Beach area, he sexually violated a girl by unlawful sexual connection.
Each charge also has an alternative of having sexual connection with the girl.
Calder is also charged with raping the girl on or about the same date, and this charge also has an alternative of having sexual connection with the teenage girl.
Opening the Crown case yesterday prosecutor Peter Magee said on January 24, last year, Calder had picked up two 14-year-old girls from Dargaville and taken them to Baylys Beach.
Mr Magee said on three separate occasions that day Calder bought alcohol for the trio - using one of the girl's ATM card - and both teenagers became drunk, with the alleged victim at one stage vomiting from her intoxication.
He said the first alleged sexual violation occurred on a quad bike on Baylys Beach while the other offences allegedly occurred in the bedroom of Calder's home at Baylys Beach.
Mr Magee said the alternative charges had been laid if the issue of consent was raised as a defence.
He said Calder, who was 37 at the time of the alleged offences, could not believe the girl, who was drunk, was consenting and the law recognised that somebody aged under 16 could wilfully give consent under those circumstances.
In a statement to the jury defence lawyer Arthur Fairley said Calder's defence was that the alleged sexual offending did not happen.
"The issue is that simple. She says it happened and he says it didn't and the issue here is has the Crown proved beyond reasonable doubt that it did," Mr Fairley said.
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