Benjamin Goundar pictured at an earlier appearance. Photo / Melissa Nightingale
Content warning: This article references sexual assault and violence. Helplines can be found at the bottom of the page.
Fear of retribution in prison kept a former prisoner from reporting multiple alleged rapes by his cellmate when he was a teenager.
"I've seen movies. Everybody knows what happens to snitches and that was enough to scare me," the man told a retrial for the accused, Benjamin Goundar.
"Now I know better but when I was 18 years old I didn't."
Goundar is on trial at the High Court in Wellington this week for the alleged rape and assault of his then 18-year-old cellmate.
The two shared a cell in Upper Hutt's Rimutaka Prison from October 2017 to January 2018, where the alleged offending, including rape, oral sex and physical violence, took place.
Goundar's lawyer Karun Lakshman continued his questioning of the cellmate, who has automatic name suppression, asking why he never reported the abuse he claims to have endured for months.
"I was scared. I was fearful," he said.
"There's a lot of people who will do a lot of things for money in prison."
According to the complainant, the alleged abuse happened almost every night, starting on the third night of sharing a cell with Goundar.
Goundar is also accused of threatening to kill the witness if he didn't comply with his demands.
On one occasion it was alleged when his cellmate said he was going to move out of the cell they shared, Goundar threatened to stab him and kill him.
"[He said] 'If you don't calm down, I'm going to kill you or stab you', and I said 'Do it'," the witness read from the police interview transcript.
"If you want to kill me, kill me. I'm not doing this anymore."
The court heard graphic details of the alleged abuse, and the cellmate – now in his early 20s - said he was ashamed of what happened.
That shame was a compounding factor in why he never reported the alleged offending.
The jury, made up of four men and seven women after a Covid positive juror was dismissed, heard from Crown witnesses today including the unit's principal Corrections officer when the allegations came to light in 2018, Ross Johnston, and a cellmate of the complainant.
Johnston said he hadn't received any training on how to speak with people who had been the victim of sexual assault while in prison.
He said he arranged for Goundar to be transferred from his cell after an anonymous Crimestoppers phone call had been made about the alleged abuse of the cellmate.
At the time, the complainant denied anything had happened and asked Johnston about what was going on when Goundar was being moved.
A cellmate of the complainant, who also has name suppression, said when he first met the complainant, he was a "loud mouth" teenager.
But as the days went on, he became quiet and reserved, retreating from his previously confident demeanour.
The pair became friends when he was assigned to be his bunkmate after Goundar had been moved.
The inmate said the complainant eventually opened up to him about the alleged abuse, after which he detailed the allegations in his journal.
During a July 2018 trip to the hospital the new cellmate left his journal unattended and another inmate he now shared a cell with read passages aloud to the unit, including details of the alleged assault the young man had experienced.
"Everything in that journal was only for me, and I was horrified that the entire unit had known what he had been through so I didn't want it to happen again," the witness said.
The man said he saw the complainant pushed out of his cell by Goundar one day from a distance, but did not report it for fear of being labelled a snitch.
When questioned by Crown prosecutor Tim Bain if he knew why the complainant was pushed by Goundar, he said he didn't know.
"It wasn't really my business. In prison there is a saying, 'You do you'. What that means is that you keep your nose out of other people's business. You can get hurt quite badly if you don't."
Lakshman accused the man multiple times during cross-examination of making the call to Crimestoppers that tipped authorities off to the alleged offending.
"For the third time I did not make that phone call and I will not answer that question again," was the response.
Goundar faces nine charges including common assault, sexual violation and threatening to kill. The case is a retrial after originally going through the court in 2020.
At the time of the alleged offending Goundar was serving a prison sentence for the abduction and rape of a girl in Hamilton in 2011.
The trial will continue tomorrow before Justice Andru Isac.
• If it's an emergency and you feel that you or someone else is at risk, call 111.
• If you've ever experienced sexual assault or abuse and need to talk to someone call the confidential crisis helpline Safe to Talk on: 0800 044 334 or text 4334. (available 24/7)
• Male Survivors Aotearoa offers a range of confidential support at centres across New Zealand - find your closest one here.
• Mosaic - Tiaki Tangata: 0800 94 22 94 (available 11am - 8pm)
• If you have been abused, remember it's not your fault.
• Wellington HELP has a 24/7 helpline for people who need to speak to someone immediately. You can call 04 801 6655 and push 0 at the menu.
He failed to convince a judge that the stash was to feed his own addiction.