KEY POINTS:
The victim in an infamous rape involving serving police officers today said she regretted coming forward when her case dragged on through the courts.
The woman was speaking at the sentencing of Rene Gaustad Mangnus and Paul Grayden Turney, who were given 12-month jail terms for attempting to
pervert the course of justice.
Their convictions relate to a false affidavit backing appeals by Peter McNamara and Warren Hales, two of four men found guilty two years ago of abducting and raping the woman in Mt Maunganui in 1989.
McNamara and Hales' co-accused were Bob Schollum and Brad Shipton, who were serving policemen at the time of the incident, and the four argued that sex was consensual.
The affidavit, instigated by Mangnus and sworn by Turney, supported a contention by Hales that the victim made romantic approaches to him at a concert in Tauranga a few days afterwards.
The affidavit was disregarded by the Court of Appeal.
Hales was granted a retrial, but changed his plea to guilty of abduction and police dropped the rape charge.
In the High Court at Auckland today, the woman, who was 20 at the time of the attack, choked back tears as she read out her victim impact report.
When Schollum, Shipton, McNamara and Hales were sentenced in 2005, she thought she could begin the process of "healing the gaping wound" that her life had become since the police investigation began the previous year.
She knew appeals were imminent, but she was reassured that the convictions were water tight.
"The media attention had thankfully died down and I was able to enjoy watching the news and reading the newspapers without being re-traumatised by images of the men who had viciously raped me in 1989," she said.
"The three-month reprieve was short lived."
She described 18 months it took for the charges against Mangnus and Turney to get to trial as "the most sad and difficult ones of my life".
"After having done the right thing and told the truth in all my time involved in the investigation, I regretted ever coming forward," she said.
"If I had known the journey needed to get justice would be so long and so cruel, I would never have started it and I imagine this is the reason many rape victims do not come forward."
She said the personal toll included the breakdown of her 15-month marriage, severe post-traumatic stress and the "pathetic and embarrassing" need to seek financial help from friends because she had had to take time off work without pay.
Mangnus, 46, a company director, and Turney, 49, a British-based sound technician, were found guilty by a jury in September.
Justice Patricia Courtney, in sentencing, said it was fortunate the Court of Appeal had refused to accept the affidavit at face value.
Even if the affidavit had been successful, the result would have been a retrial during which the pair would have been cross-examined.
But Justice Courtney said she regarded the offence as a serious one and needed a custodial sentence.
She rejected the submission of the men's lawyers, and the recommendation of the victim, that the pair should be allowed home detention.
Both Mangnus and Turney offered to pay reparation to the woman and Justice Courtney set a figure of $15,000 for each.
- NZPA
