Lesbians guilty of sex attack

TWO Masterton women have made New Zealand legal history after a jury last night found them guilty of sexually violating another woman.
Suppression on the names of Kristina Rachael Oliver, 34, and Lynette Kaye Stewart, 37, ended with the guilty verdicts.
A Wellington District Court jury took eight hours to find Oliver and Stewart guilty of being a party to sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, and Oliver guilty of two charges of assault.
They found Stewart not guilty of another charge of being a party to sexual violation by unlawful connection and assault and Oliver not guilty of threatening to kill.
The couple were remanded on bail until sentencing on December 8.
In a first for a New Zealand trial, the Crown alleged the two women sexually violated the complainant, who had come to their home in December 2003.
The woman had been to their home the night before for dinner with her female partner. The next night when she returned for coffee she said the women attacked her.
The two women faced reduced charges after Judge Bruce Davidson discharged several where there was no evidence at the end of the Crown case.
Crown prosecutor Kate Feltham said the case of sexual violence may have shocked the jury.
She said the complainant, who they might think was not well-educated, smart or sophisticated with a lifestyle foreign to them, said she was telling the truth.
Ms Feltham said a doctor had found injuries consistent with the allegations made by the complainant.
Defence lawyer Helen Croft had told the jury they had been taken to "a weird and wacky twilight zone... where the area was. .. between real and imagined".
She said the complainant's evidence was fundamentally suspect because it was so bizarre, along with what jurors heard about her numerous other complaints.
Ms Croft said her client now bitterly regretted inviting the complainant into her home where the complainant had exploded like a time bomb in the face of the two women who had extended the hand of friendship.
Defence lawyer Jock Blathwayt said the complainant was not a reliable witness. The injuries later seen by a doctor could have come from a combination of events, could have been self inflicted or could have come from her own partner who had admitted being violent in the past.
He said the whole thing was clearly fantasy.
Judge Davidson told the jury the central and core issue of the case was whether the events actually happened or were some kind of fabrication. ? NZPA