Chris Budgen is on trial in the Rotorua District Court for an allegation of an historic rape. Photo / Mead Norton
WARNING: This story contains content that may be upsetting to some people
Chris Budgen says he had a normal one-night stand with a woman at the Spa Lodge in Rotorua 31 years ago and it was not rape.
Budgen is on trial in the Rotorua District Court after pleading not guilty to raping a Rotorua woman on September 15, 1991.
It is the Crown’s case Budgen approached the woman from behind as she walked along Amohau St after 2.20am, put his right hand over her mouth, dragged her down an alleyway and raped her against a concrete wall.
Budgen was arrested after forensic experts contacted police in October 2012 to advise scientific advances meant they could get DNA from clothing garments held by police as part of the investigation.
Detectives traced the DNA to Budgen, who was living in the United Kingdom and was in the British army.
Budgen was 18 in 1991 and was in Rotorua on the night in question having played for an U19 representative side in a curtain raiser to an NPC match.
It is Budgen’s defence he had consensual sex with an unknown woman in Rotorua that night at his hotel or lodge accommodation he was sharing with another team member.
His lawyer, Sam Wimsett, told the jury during his opening address it was “just a quite normal sexual encounter between two young people and that was it, as far as he was concerned”.
Budgen took the stand yesterday and said when he was first told about the allegation he was “pretty gobsmacked”.
“To be honest with you I didn’t know what to say.”
When asked about his accommodation arrangements in Rotorua and if he was billeted to another rugby player’s house, he said from memory a few of them decided they wanted to go into town, have fun and stay somewhere cheap.
He described it as an “off-the-cuff type thing”. After visiting Rotorua since being charged, he said he now knew the place they had arranged to stay was the Spa Lodge on Amohau St.
He told the jury he recalled meeting a woman at Fentons Tavern with blonde hair who had an Australian accent and talked about Australia.
“I remember we were just talking and we left ... we went back to my room.”
He said there was small talk and kissing and then she got on top of him and they had sex.
After they had finished, his roommate came back and the three of them talked.
The woman wanted to leave and asked Budgen if he would walk her home.
“I said no because I had a reasonably early start in the morning.”
He said there was no anger when she left but they didn’t exchange phone numbers.
When Wimsett asked Budgen if he had dragged a woman down an alleyway and had sex with her against a wall he said: “Definitely not.”
He said in evidence he had never faced these allegations before and only had one conviction for careless driving from many years ago.
Under cross-examination from Crown prosecutor Anna McConachy, she asked why he didn’t know the woman’s name.
“Do you think it is likely you might have picked up a blonde girl at the bar and had sex with her without finding out her name?”
Budgen then said “most probably” they exchanged names but he couldn’t remember what it was.
He also admitted the description the woman gave police of the man who raped her in the alleyway could have been the same as his - male, Pakehā, about 6ft or 182cm tall (he is 5ft 9 inch or 175cm tall) with short hair (a team photo showed he had short hair at the time).
McConachy asked why he couldn’t remember who his teammates were, who he had arranged to stay with or who the specific player was he shared a room with, and Budgen said it was because he was “bad with names”.
He acknowledged police had contacted some of the teammates and no one knew Budgen’s whereabouts that night or had arranged to stay with him at the Spa Lodge.
Earlier, sexual assault expert Dr Tricia Briscoe gave evidence for the Crown and said the woman had a bruise on the back of her neck and blood stains on parts of her body caused by blunt force.
She said, however, it could often not be determined through examinations if sexual intercourse was consensual.
McConachy took Briscoe through her examination records taken just hours after the alleged rape.
Briscoe told the jury the woman was tired and was at times crying and putting her head on a desk.
An examination found she had a small, tender bruise at the back of her neck, pinpoint dried red blood spots on both buttocks and lower left abdomen, blood stains on the exterior and interior of her vagina and roughing skin on her left groin.
Briscoe concluded in her summary the neck bruise was consistent with external force being applied and the pinpoint blood spots and roughing of skin on her groin were caused from blunt force as a result of superficial movement.
She said the blood stains in and around the vagina could have been from intercourse but it was often difficult to determine if injuries occurred as a result of consensual or non-consensual acts.
McConachy put it to Budgen he had inflicted the injuries on the woman when he pushed her up against a concrete wall in an alleyway and forced himself on her.
Budgen said “no”.
He was asked if it was rough sex and if he noticed any bleeding and he replied “no” to both.
McConachy put it to Budgen he knew that after consenting to a DNA sample being taken the results would point to him so he “worked out the only plausible defence to this case was to say it was consensual”.
Budgen replied “no”.
The trial, before Judge Eddie Paul, started on Monday. Both the Crown and defence cases had finished and lawyers were expected to close their arguments to the jury this morning.