A judge has dismissed a rape case from 30 years ago because a brain haemorrhage has cost the accused his memory.
Allen Richard Collier is the same man who was wrongly jailed three years ago for another historical rape, and freed when the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction.
Mr Collier's court
fights are finally over, after Judge Robert Spear decided this week that he could not get a fair trial on the new rape charge. The Crown had alleged that in 1969, Mr Collier, then aged 17, raped a 14-year-old friend at Kerepehi.
The former Northern Districts cricketer, now 47, was arrested in December 1997, a year after the Court of Appeal overturned his earlier conviction for rape and he was freed six months into a five-year sentence.
In mid-1996 he had been found guilty of a rape alleged to have happened in Paeroa 16 years earlier. The Court of Appeal ruling came after the discovery of fresh evidence by Mr Collier's wife and two friends.
In a bizarre twist, Mr Collier, whose new-found freedom in December 1996 was reported in a women's magazine, found himself back in the dock when the complainant in the alleged Kerepehi rape recognised him from the photo.
The case was to go to trial in May, but in Hamilton last month, Mr Collier's lawyer, Warren Scotter, successfully argued for a stay of proceedings.
Judge Spear said in a written decision that the "exceptional set of circumstances" including Mr Collier's memory loss caused by a 1987 brain haemorrhage, and the 28-year delay in the complainant coming forward, were behind his decision.
"I have reached that conclusion mindful that both the complainant and the community have an entitlement to see those that offend in such a serious way are brought to justice. However, the interests of justice extend to take account of the rights of accused people as well."
Judge Spear said he well appreciated that the rape may have happened. "I do not cast doubt on the complainant's credibility."
But there was psychological and psychiatric support for Mr Collier's claim that he could not remember distant events. "He could only go into the witness box and inform the jury that he cannot dispute that he might have raped the complainant, but that he simply has no recollection of it."
