By NAOMI LARKIN
A woman's detailed account of repeated rape and sexual abuse which occurred when she was a child more than half a century ago was unnatural and way beyond most people's recall, the High Court at New Plymouth heard yesterday.
The evidence was given by a 61-year-old woman in a rape case that dates back to 1945, when she was aged 5.
A 77-year-old Taranaki man - the complainant's brother-in-law - has denied two charges of rape, one of indecent assault and one of unlawfully using his finger to procure a miscarriage. The rape and indecency charges are representative.
A second abortion charge was dismissed yesterday.
In his opening address, defence counsel Stephen Harrop told the jury that if any of them were around in 1945 it was unlikely they could recall any sort of detail about events at that time.
This was natural because 55 years had passed, but it was not natural for the complainant, now aged 61, to be able to provide the detail they had heard since the case began on Monday.
The "huge delay" made it difficult to defend the allegations because memories had faded and become unreliable. Worse still, he said, almost every independent witness had died.
The woman had not gone to police about the abuse until August 1999 and the accused was not told about it until August this year.
"His explanation is simple and straightforward: none of these incidents happened," Mr Harrop said.
Earlier, a childhood friend of the woman said she remembered her friend telling her when they were aged 8 about how the accused would take her for rides on his bicycle and put his hands up her underpants.
She said her friend "absolutely hated" what he was doing and "hated him sticking his thing in her."
Later, when she was 13, her friend told her she had missed her period and was terribly upset.
The complainant's husband said his wife told him about the abuse about 33 years ago.
It came out because at the time, his wife's eldest sister, who is married to the accused, kept asking her why she would not allow their youngest daughter to stay with them.
His wife was very protective of the daughter and when she finally allowed her to stay with her aunt and uncle her brothers went also and were warned never to leave her alone.
During cross-examination by Mr Harrop, the complainant said she had heard from her sister that the accused had injured his testicles and penis in an accident on the farm.
Her sister gave three reasons for the injuries - including being caught in barbed wire, and "slapped" with a sledgehammer - but the complainant denied that it would have been painful for him to have sex after the accident.
"He showed no pain with me and he could have it as many times as he liked. You can't tell me there was any pain."
Detective Constable Patricia Clark said that when the man was arrested in August he said he had been unable to have sex for 40 years.
The trial, before Justice Tony Randerson, continues today.
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