Woman, 70, describes terror of sex ordeal

A lawyer yesterday asked a 70-year-old woman if she had consensual sexual relations with the man accused of her abduction, and prolonged and brutal sexual attack.

The woman is one of four who have accused Nicholas Paul Alfred Reekie of 34 charges of assault and sexual attack.

Cross-examined by Reekie's lawyer, Allan Roberts, in the High Court at Auckland, the woman replied "definitely not" when the allegation of a sexual relationship with Reekie was put to her.

Reekie, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the charges relating to assaults and sexual attacks on women aged between 11 and 69 between 1992 and February last year.

He faces 10 charges relating to the 70-year-old, who was 69 at the time of the attack.

Mr Roberts said he had to put specific suggestions to the woman which she could accept or reject.

She denied ever performing oral sex on Reekie before December 2001 and also denied consuming liquor with him at her home.

When Mr Roberts asked if she had ever asked to go to Reekie's home, she replied: "No. God, no."

She heaved a sigh and exclaimed: "Is that all?" when told she could leave the witness stand at the end of nearly two hours of evidence during which counsel referred to her by her married name.

Earlier she had walked unsteadily to the witness box. When the hearing adjourned for lunch she rose, saying: "I was very fit and strong and healthy."

She began her evidence under questioning from Susan Gray, prosecuting, by saying she was working in the garden of her New Lynn unit on the evening of December 28, 2001.

"I usually go for a power walk but decided instead to stay in the garden. And I left my doors open."

The court heard that when she went inside about 5pm she saw a man in her bedroom. She had a quilt thrown over her head, was tied up with shoe laces and punched. She was picked up and put in a car.

She recalled being very frightened and of going over two "speed lumps" and a railway line.

"I'd realised that if I was going to get out of this in one piece ... I wouldn't make him angry," the woman said.

She said the man told her not to look at his face. Just on dark they arrived at a reserve.

Asked what happened then the witness replied: "You know it's going to be hard to talk about sex and things but I'll do it ... We had ... normal sex and then ... "

When it started raining they went to a Kelston house where, in a small bedroom, they had more sex.

"It went on for hours until daybreak ... By that time at least he had stopped hitting me."

She told the court that after being delivered back home she crawled into her bed and stayed there for two days.

She said some days later she was still at home listening to soothing music when she heard a scratch on her door.

"I opened the bathroom window and I knew it was him ... I think he thought I was going to let him in. He went, thank God, but that was the trigger. I immediately rang the police."

She said she still had wounds from the attacks and would be left with horrible marks.

"I'm going to have those for the rest of my life."

The court also heard more evidence yesterday of an abduction and sexual attacks on an 11-year-old girl in 1992.

David Dougherty was wrongly jailed on charges relating to the girl who, now aged 21, gave evidence on Monday.

The trial, before Justice Rhys Harrison and a jury of eight men and four women, continues today.