Northern Districts cricketer's rape trial: Crown and defence present closing arguments

Scott Kuggeleijn is defending a charge of rape. Photo / George Novak

Northern Districts cricketer Scott Kuggeleijn acted as any other man would when he tried to have sex with a woman after she had earlier said "no", his lawyer says.

The trial involving the 24-year-old is wrapping up in the Hamilton District Court tomorrow, after the Crown and defence made their closing statements today to the jury of eight men and four women.

Kuggeleijn's defence lawyer, Philip Morgan, QC, said his client stopped carrying on with sexual activity when the complainant told him to on two occasions during the early hours of Sunday, May 17, last year.

However, after they woke up in the morning and began kissing and fondling each other again, he tried again.

This time, he didn't hear a "no", Morgan says.

"This case is about ... a young man who thought he could. A young man who heard the word 'no' the previous night and stopped and when he didn't hear 'no' the following morning ... intercourse occurred and that is not rape. That is not rape because the young woman can't prove that the defendant didn't have a belief based on reasonable grounds that the complainant was consenting."

The alleged victim claims that Kuggeleijn pinned her arms down and had sex against her will. Immediately afterwards she got dressed and left the room before bursting into her flatmate's room distraught.

Morgan told the jury to focus on the timeline around the alleged incident which happened just before 7am.

"What they did in the morning was exactly the same as what they did in the night and she didn't say 'no', the word that worked so well for her the night before ... so he thought he had a consenting partner and had intercourse with her."

Morgan says she relented due to the "social pressures" of her being labelled a tease by friends.

Kuggeleijn acted like any other man when he tried to have sex with the complainant the next morning, says Morgan.

"I suggest if I said to you that 100 men who have been in that situation and tried again you would have a forest of hands. There's nothing horrible about that, it's just a reflection of life and really what was Scott Kuggeleijn other than one of these men."

He submitted the complainant, who was very intoxicated, downplayed events from earlier in the night.

"They went straight into the house, straight into the bedroom and straight into clothes off. She rather attempted to play that down. She put it on the basis of 'that I was ok with him coming home with me'. It went a bit further than she was okay with him coming home with her because they got their gear off and got into bed."

Earlier Crown prosecutor Jacinda Foster rejected the defence claim that the sex was a classic case of "reluctant consent".

She said the alleged victim had no choice but to go through with it as Kuggeleijn overpowered her.

"Rape doesn't have to be pre-meditated. All it takes is a man who is very persistent."

Foster also took umbrage with Kuggeleijn commenting about the way she was dressed - mid-length skirt and singlet top - and what she was saying at the party.

"[According to Kuggeleijn] because of the way she was dressed and talked she was the type of girl who 'loved penis'."

Foster says there will have been pressure on Kuggeleijn by his mates to have sex with the alleged victim and him feeling he had failed if that didn't happen.

She had no reason to drag Kuggeleijn through the media scrutiny and had nothing to gain.

"She faces the prospect of forever being branded a victim or by others as a liar. Neither of those would be the least bit attractive from her perspective."