Former Mid Northern rugby players Cameron Hill and Inoke Nakadavotu are on trial over allegations of sexual violation. Photo / Facebook
WARNING: This article discusses allegations of sexual assault and may be upsetting to some readers.
Two men who were once friends on the rugby field have become foes in the courtroom as they fight allegations of sexual offending.
Cameron Hill, 26, and Inoke Nakadavotu, 27, have been on trial in the Whangārei District Court since Monday, defending one charge each of unlawful sexual connection by sexual violation.
The men have been accused of orchestrating a sexual encounter between Nakadavotu and a woman that she says she never agreed to.
The jury has heard that several years ago, Hill and Nakadavotu were drinking at a Whangārei bar with other members of the Mid Northern Rugby Club.
There, they met the woman and her friends and, after the bar closed, people travelled in two taxis to Hill’s parents’ house.
Later, when everyone left, the woman stayed behind and watched a movie with Hill and Nakadavotu, known as Nox.
As the movie played, the men sent each other text messages, while they were on the couch and the woman was present.
Those messages, sent between 3am and 4am, have formed the basis of the trial.
“Threesome??? Oh haha,” Hill said in a message he sent to Nakadavotu.
“We on,” Nakadavotu responded.
“Oh s*** yeah hahaha,” Hill sent back.
Hill and the woman went into a room, where they had consensual sex, before Hill got up and left the room.
A short time later, the woman woke to Nakadavotu in the bed, sexually interacting with her.
The Crown said the woman was aware someone had come into the room, but believed it was Hill returning to bed.
When she realised it was Nakadavotu, the woman jumped out of bed, covered herself and yelled, “What the f***?”
Nakadavotu then allegedly ran out of the room.
The Crown claimed the men planned the sexual act without the consent of the woman, alleging Nakadavotu was the principal offender and Hill was equally liable for encouraging the act.
Neither Hill nor Nakadavotu gave evidence, but their lawyers laid out their defence in closing submissions to the jury today.
Nakadavotu’s lawyer, Wayne McKean, said his client has been telling the truth about his version of events.
He said Nakadavotu thought Hill was joking when he received the threesome text, and he had not gone to the house with the intention of having a sexual interaction with the woman.
McKean said his client was honest in his police statement that when the text was sent, it planted an idea.
He also pointed out Nakadavotu had shared the texts with police, while Hill allegedly said his were deleted.
Nakadavotu alleges that after he went to bed, Hill woke him and told him the woman said she wanted him to go into the room. He believed this was a signal of consent.
In Hill’s recorded police statement, he said he couldn’t remember if he had said that to Nakadavotu.
“It’s logical that must have happened because how would he know, Mr Nakadavotu thinks he can go to [the woman] unless he knows Mr Hill has left the room and is not going back. There must have been an exchange between them,” McKean said.
“When you have two people here and one of them can’t remember, the only evidence you’ve got is from the one that can.”
He said the Crown’s case falls apart after Nakadavotu got to the room and asked the woman if she was okay with him coming in.
“She said it was okay,” McKean said.
“When he comes into the bed, she allows it to happen, she’s clearly thinking it’s Cam Hill, but Mr Nakadavotu doesn’t know that. He’s just getting positive responses.”
McKean referenced the evidence given by the woman’s friends, who consistently said the woman knew Nakadavotu had got into bed with her but was not sure what happened.
“The problem with memory is it’s affected by other people. People start believing things happened when they didn’t, maybe to avoid embarrassment, maybe to paint themselves in a better light.
“She couldn’t remember, and the stories she now tells are not just inconsistent, they’re there to fit an incorrect narrative of what happened.”
McKean was also critical of a photo taken by the woman at Hill’s house at 6.36am, which showed her making a peace sign.
“It’s not consistent with being upset. It’s not consistent with being confused. There’s a reasonable doubt about her evidence.”
Hill’s lawyer, Arthur Fairley, said his client’s case was fundamentally separate from Nakadavotu’s, who had relied on attacking the credibility of the woman.
“I am not suggesting any way, shape, or form that [the woman] was a liar or indeed wrong. What [the woman] says about Mr Hill, the defence agrees with.”
Fairley said the Crown was relying on the threesome texts as evidence that he had planned something sinister, and the jury was not allowed to consider Nakadavotu’s statements when deciding on a verdict for Hill.
“You do not take what he said into account; what he says about my client is hearsay,” Fairley told the jury.
Fairley referred to a text message Hill sent to Nakadavotu that said “easy peasy”, which the Crown implied was sent after Nakadavotu went to the room.
“They don’t know whether that ‘easy peasy’ was sent before, during, or after he comes out. They’re guessing on all this stuff,” Fairley said.
“Their case is abysmal of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Fairley reminded the jury that for it to find Hill guilty, the Crown had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he encouraged Nakadavotu to have non-consensual sexual interactions.
“They’re trying to make my client guilty for dumb messages because that’s their only case against them.”
Fairley said Hill was a “stupid 21-year-old drunken rugby player who had been talking nonsense”, but it was not enough to find him guilty of unlawful sexual connection.
The jury is expected to retire to consider its verdicts tomorrow.
The men no longer play for Mid Northern Rugby.
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.