Crown: Rape complainant's evidence is reliable

Peter Chambers (left) and Mark Arona are on trial in Tauranga District Court accused of raping and sexually assaulting a woman in a local motel room. Photo/File.

The Crown has told a jury it can be satisfied a rape complainant's testimony that she was sexually assaulted in a motel room was credible and reliable.

Mark Arona, 40, and Peter John Chambers, 42, are on trial in Tauranga District Court.

The well-known music producers deny one charge each of sexual violation by rape and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

The complainant claims she was heavily intoxicated and blacked out after having a puff of cannabis and woke up to find she had no clothes on and the accused violating her.

She told the jury she later had vivid flashbacks about what Arona and Chambers did to her "numb body' and described feeling "like a ragdoll".

Arona claimed there was a threesome with the woman and the acts were consensual.

During her closing address yesterday, Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett said the two men "helped themselves" and took advantage of an incapacitated woman.

Contrary to evidence by Arona and Chambers, the complainant's statements to a doctor and police and the evidence she gave in court were entirely consistent, Ms Pollett said.

Ms Pollett said the complainant remembered she was not in a fit state to give consent.

"She certainly wasn't able to perform the type of sexual acts the defendants would like you to believe," she told the jury.

Ms Pollett said the complainant did not try to embellish or add to her original prior consistent statements.

The defendants' evidence was inconsistent, particularly when compared to text messages and phone calls between them and what they told the complainant, she said.

Ms Pollett said the defendants knew they were in trouble and have tried to rebut the allegations by attacking the woman's credibility.

"That includes calling her a groupie, a liar, a crazy, evil woman who was out to get them and bring them down, she said.

Ms Pollett said there was "no setup, no axe to grind" as the two defendants had tried to suggest during their evidence.

Chambers, who had given evidence over the past two days, repeatedly denied he was involved in a threesome despite Arona's evidence to the contrary.

He claimed the woman was being " flirty" and indicated she was "up for" having sex with him and for some reason has made up false allegations.

"She was not incapacitated. She was not passed out, she was in control, and she knew exactly what was going on in that room...she's lying," he said.

Ms Pollett put it to Chambers that in one phone call Arona told Chambers to say to the complainant she took off her clothes and they just helped her, and he did so.

Chambers insisted he never took off the woman's clothes and she was in control throughout their sexual encounter.

Despite telling the complainant he was wasted and could not remember much about that night, Chambers told the jury he was "tipsy" and tired but coherent and had total recall of what happened.

The two defence lawyers will give their closing statements to the jury today, followed by Judge David Cameron's summing up and the jury will then retire to consider its verdict.