Tauranga District Court trial: Man denies work party sexual violation

A man denies the "forceful" sexual violation of a woman who fell asleep at a party after a work event.

Warning: This story contains evidence of a sexual nature which some readers may find upsetting.

A man has denied sexually violating an intoxicated woman as she slept after a work party that ended at a colleague’s home.

The man, who has name suppression, is on trial charged with sexual violation. The jury hearing his case in the Tauranga District Court has now retired to consider its verdict.

The charge relates to a woman who alleges the man “forcefully” penetrated her in a spare room at the party host’s home, after a day at the races and evening revelry that followed.

Under cross-examination by Crown Solicitor Anna Pollett, the man said he had mistakenly entered her bedroom in the early hours of the morning, after having been to the toilet, as he’d slept in that room on another occasion.

He “took a few steps” inside and then left to go back to the bedroom he’d been shown to earlier.

Pollett put to him that he went in there with the intent to commit the alleged sexual violation.

He responded, “no”.

The Crown pointed to a photograph taken after the incident, that showed a hat he’d been wearing earlier that day in the bed where the alleged violation took place.

The man didn’t know how the hat had ended up there.

During re-examination, the defendant’s lawyer asked him when he’d last seen his hat.

The man said it had fallen off his head earlier in the evening and while he remembered catching it as it fell, he doesn’t have clear memories of it again that night.

The court earlier heard from the woman who said that she’d spent the night catching up with longstanding friends and chatting with others she’d just met.

As the evening wore on and the drinks kept flowing, she had become very drunk.

She blacked out, and doesn’t remember being shown to a spare room by one of the homeowners.

She alleges she woke up to the defendant pulling her back by her inner thighs.

In her evidential video interview she said, as she realised what was happening, she kept thinking, “say something, say something” before she used her most “stern” voice to say: “Get the f*** off me”.

After he “scurried off”, she went back to sleep but when she woke later and went to the bathroom, she’d felt sore.

She said she looked in the mirror and thought; “what the f***, has this really happened?”.

In evidential video statement and in evidence in court, the woman said the man raped her, forcefully, while pinning her down as she lay on her side.

Photos were produced as evidence that the woman took in the days after the alleged attack, and the Crown case is that they show bruising the defendant caused.

The defence case is that the woman was so intoxicated, after a day of heavy drinking, that her evidence can’t be relied upon.

Defence lawyer Craig Tuck told the woman that her account was “absolute fantasy”, and she made it up.

She said she wished she’d made it up.

In his closing address, Tuck said his client was unwavering under cross-examination and his testimony had the ring of truth.

He had been “peppered” with questions from the Crown, but had remained steadfast.

The defence pointed to a lack of DNA present in the physical examination and said it was a trial of “what’s not there”.

The Crown says the woman’s evidence outlined a vivid and detailed account of a very specific sexual act.

Crown Prosecutor Larissa Mulder, in closing, said the woman had clearly described waking up, the noise of the man panting, his size and what she could see, hear and feel.

The court also heard from the homeowners who’d hosted the party about the events of the following morning.

They both said, in evidence given in court, that the woman had broken down into uncontrollable sobs the following morning. They had assisted in getting the police involved.

One of the homeowners relayed a conversation he says he had with the man in the days after the alleged attack.

They’d been discussing some related fallout to the allegations and the homeowner said the man asked him if he thought he should apologise to the woman.

The homeowner said he told him he didn’t think that was a good idea.

The man accepted there had been text messages, emails and a phone call in the days after the alleged incident, but said he had never suggested apologising to her.

He said he hadn’t been aware what the allegation was, nor what it pertained to.

Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.