Cameron Hill and Inoke Nakadavotu were on trial over allegations of a sexual assault on a woman. Photo / Facebook
Cameron Hill and Inoke Nakadavotu were on trial over allegations of a sexual assault on a woman. Photo / Facebook
WARNING: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault and may be upsetting to some readers.
What began as a night of drinking ended in a courtroom, where a jury was tasked with untangling blurred memories and conflicting accounts of an alleged sexual assault.
With all three central figures unableto recall key moments, the jury found the Crown had not proved its case and found both accused men not guilty.
Inoke Nakadavotu, 28, and Cameron Hill, 27, have been on a trial at the Whangārei District Court charged with one charge each of unlawful sexual connection by sexual violation.
The Crown viewed Nakadavotu as the principal offender who committed the act, while Hill was equally liable for allegedly encouraging him.
Last week, several witnesses gave evidence, including the woman, about the night she went home with Hill after meeting up with him and his Mid Northern rugby player friends at a bar in Whangārei.
She went knowing she was having consensual sex with Hill. However, afterwards, she said she woke to Nakadavotu in the bed with her and touching her in a sexual manner.
She said she jumped out of the bed yelling “what the f***?” and spent the next month trying to unravel what happened to her that night.
She made a statement a year later but it was another year until Nakadavotu and Hill were interviewed by police on camera.
The case centred around text messages sent between Hill and Nakadavotu while the three of them were sitting on the couch watching a movie. The woman was unaware of the texts.
“Threesome??? Oh haha,” Hill said in a message he sent to Nakadavotu.
“We on,” Nakadavotu responded.
“Oh s*** yeah hahaha,” Hill sent back.
Crown prosecutor Richard Annandale said in closing statements to the jury on Thursday that the investigation evolved.
“You might have got the impression she thought Mr Hill hadn’t done anything, but as the police investigation proceeded they realised he might have relevant matters to talk about,” Annandale said.
Annandale said the jury could assume Nakadavotu had gone back to Hills to have somewhere to stay the night.
“One can put it down to, they had a plan.”
Crown prosecutor Richard Annandale closed the case to the jury on Thursday. Photo / Sam Hurley
Nakadavotu ran a defence that the woman could not remember what had happened because she was intoxicated and therefore, her evidence was unreliable.
Nakadavotu’s lawyer Wayne McKean also submitted he went into the room after being told by Hill she wanted him in there. McKean argued the woman told Nakadavotu it was okay for him to come in.
In his statement, he initially said he only kissed her. However, by the end of the video, he admitted he had a sexual interaction with her.
“She knows Nakadavotu has come into the bedroom unwanted and in the period immediately following, she has woken up confused. She thought she was going to have sex with Mr Hill and this other fella has helped himself,” Annandale said.
Hill’s lawyer Arthur Fairley said the case for his client was circumstantial and was only relying on the text messages sent that both men had said were a joke.
Fairley said his client was just a “drunken rugby player” who had been talking nonsense.
But the Crown said the text messages allegedly proved much more.
“The fact they were joking in the absence of the third party is an insight to their mindset,” Annandale said.
He also pointed out when Hill was shown the texts in his video statement, he defaulted to memory loss.
“The wheels and head were spinning – holy,” Annandale told the jury.
On Friday, it took the jury of six men and six women three hours to return not guilty pleas on all charges related to both men.
Judge Taryn Bayley dismissed the jury and thanked them for their service.
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.
