Pair put drug in drink, court told

A young woman was allegedly raped after her drink was spiked by the owner and barman of a West Auckland nightclub, a jury in the High Court at Auckland heard yesterday.

In his opening address, prosecutor Brian Dickey, who appeared for the Crown with Wendy Andrews, said the pair had drugged the woman as part of a sexual "thrill-seeking exercise."

Frank Maurice Manifold, aged 45, who owned the Blazers Bar and Cafe in Kumeu, and Richard John Condren, aged 48, of Riverhead, a friend who helped out in the bar, deny stupefying the 24-year-old woman with the drug cyclizine, raping and sodomising her early on July 12 last year.

The woman had gone for a drink in Blazers after bumping into an old acquaintance, Duane McCulloch, outside. After a couple of rounds, they were suddenly told that drinks were free.

Mr Dickey told the jury that the drug must have been slipped into the woman's drink early on, because she soon felt groggy and drowsy.

He said cyclizine had a knockout effect when mixed with alcohol.

While intoxicated, the woman was deliberately drugged, he said. As a result a large part of the early hours of that day were a blank.

"She simply cannot recall large chunks of the evening. She does not know who she had sex with or when ... She knows that she was not interested in sex with either of these two gentlemen, certainly," said Mr Dickey.

He told the court that things started going wrong when the woman went to the toilet and was followed by Manifold, who put his foot in the door.

She blacked out but revived as she was being helped upstairs and put on a bed.

She briefly came to as Condren was twisting her arm up her back while Manifold was naked in front of her. She tried to kick out, said Mr Dickey, but was being firmly held.

After that she was not aware of anything until just before 10 am, when another customer, Max Lingman, was helping her to get dressed and trying to comfort her shortly before the police arrived.

At one point during the night Mr Lingman had gone upstairs and saw Manifold and another man he could not identify who was fumbling with the woman, said Mr Dickey. Manifold told him to leave.

The woman struggled to her feet and made it to the door but fell down a steep flight of stairs. She suffered numerous bruises and broke her wrist, but Mr Dickey said she had no recollection of the fall.

Notwithstanding, Manifold led her back upstairs, Mr Dickey told the jury.

A little later Mr Lingman went back upstairs because "something was bugging him." He stepped in when he saw the woman's apparently "lifeless" body on the bed.

Meanwhile, Mr McCulloch's mother had phoned the police after her son "crashed out" in his car in the car park.

It was interesting, said Mr Dickey, that Mr McCulloch could not recall much of the evening either.

There would be evidence that the woman suffered injuries consistent with a fall. There were also vaginal injuries and injuries consistent with being punched.

Manifold told police he did not have sex with the woman and denied any involvement. Condren denied raping the woman when spoken to by the police.

Manifold is represented by Kevin McDonald and Condren by Barry Hart and Nigel Cooke.

The trial before Justice Nicholson continues today.