The man is before a judge-alone trial in the Wellington District Court, where he denies five charges, including three of rape. Photo / 123rf
Warning: This story includes details of alleged sexual offending and may offend some readers.
A man accused of raping his wife of 17 years denies the charges, claiming she instigated the sex.
But the case is so divisive, the two can’t even agree on whether they were supposed to share a bed on the night he’s accused of raping her twice.
He says he went to their bed as usual, unaware he wasn’t welcome.
She says he took advantage while she was drowsy from her sleeping medication, leaving the living room where she believed he was sleeping and climbing onto the bed in the master bedroom.
The next morning, they had sex again.
“I awoke to him on top of me again. I just let him do what he wanted to do, and afterwards he said, ‘That‘s all you need is more sex‘,” she earlier testified during a trial in the Wellington District Court.
The man, who has name suppression, is charged with assault on a person in a family relationship, two charges of threatening to kill and three charges of rape.
During the judge-alone trial, which is now in its second week, the court has heard conflicting evidence.
The man maintains it was his wife who initiated sex that night, and again in the morning.
He says that after sex, they both fell asleep. He awoke, relieved because they’d been intimate after weeks of tension, including talk of couples counselling to try to salvage their marriage.
“I said if we keep doing this, we’ll be okay,” he recalls telling his wife.
But he also told the court during the conversation that his wife had told him the sex the night before “was nice for those who wanted it”.
The man told the court the comment frightened him, because it wasn’t consistent with what had happened.
But having made it, he says, it was his wife who then initiated sex in the morning.
The woman says the marriage was unhappy, coercive, and controlling from the get-go.
He says it was a loving, mutual marriage, where they supported each other’s endeavours, until the last few years when her mental health deteriorated.
He denies ever raping, assaulting, sexually violating or threatening to kill his then-wife.
“Have you ever had sex with her against her will at all?” his lawyer Lucie Scott asked.
“No,” he replied.
To support his case, he’s provided hundreds of messages the pair exchanged on various forums, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and email.
She told the court that the regular communication was to assess and manage his moods.
He says it was just part of a normal, loving relationship.
“We’ve weathered some nightmares in our 17 years together; this is by far the worst, but I don’t want to give up on it,” one of his messages said.
But the Crown suggests the man wasn’t as supportive as he’s claimed, and the wife’s account is the truthful one.
At one stage, she’d messaged her husband saying; “I’m tired of worrying when you’ll next get angry”.
“And that’s because you did get angry regularly, didn’t you?” Crown prosecutor Anselm Williams suggested, something the man denied.
Williams also asked about the sex in the master bedroom. The man told the court his wife had initially agreed to spend the night away from the house, but instead ended up sleeping in their bed.
It was the first night they’d spent together in weeks, and the evening had gone really well, he said.
Because of the way events had unfolded that evening, he said, he felt comfortable getting into bed with her, after which she had initiated sex.
After that, they fell asleep, with the man admitting that he woke in the morning feeling good.
“I felt loved,” he said.
In response to questions by Williams, he agreed that his wife’s comment had frightened him, because it suggested his wife hadn’t consented to sex.
But he believed she had consented, telling the court he wouldn’t have had sex with his wife if she didn’t want it.
Asked by Williams why he had sex the next morning, when his wife had suggested she hadn’t consented the night before, he said his wife had initiated it.
“She has complete control of the situation, and I did go along with it,” adding that he saw it as a positive sign.
But Williams put to the man that despite being told to stop, he’d pulled his wife’s pyjama bottoms down.
The man disagreed, saying his wife had lifted her hips so he could get them off.
“You told her what she needed was to have more sex,” Williams said.
“No, I said if we kept doing this, we would be okay,” the man responded.
Tomorrow, counsel will sum up before Judge Noel Sainsbury, who is expected to reserve his decision.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.