Hamilton dentist Rahul Gautam, left, leaves the Hamilton District Court. Photo / Belinda Feek
A woman who has accused a dentist of repeatedly groping her breasts and kissing her, has been questioned whether she expressed any “distaste” at the man’s advances.
Rahul Gautam, owner of Hamilton Emergency Dental Centre, is defending three charges of indecent assault, relating to alleged breast groping, kissing, and the touching of her genitals, at his Tamahere home two years ago.
Gautam, 51, was labelled by his lawyer, Philip Morgan, KC, as a “foolish man thinking that he might have a romantic interlude with the complainant”.
He had given the woman a ride to his house on the pretence of offering a driving lesson, but instead drove his car straight into his garage, and led her to his bedroom, after grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses.
The complainant, alleges that Gautam, persistently tried to get her on to his bed, and after she did sit on the bed, his persistent behaviour continued with him trying to touch her breasts, and, at one point, touching her genitals.
She also alleges he moved her face to kiss his as they left his house to drop her home.
Morgan said Gautam accepted that he touched the complainant’s breast and tried to kiss her, but is defending the charges on the basis that he didn’t realise the complainant was not willing.
The complainant has automatic name suppression.
Morgan put to the woman in cross-examination that Gautam told her when they got into his car, before they drove off, that “You know you’re not having a driving lesson”.
“Not at that point,” the complainant replied.
He put to her that her response was, “Yeah, pretty much”, but she denied that.
Morgan put to her that as he held her hand on the drive to his house, she never displayed “any signs of distaste”.
“I was nervous, and at that time I thought he was just comforting me,” she said.
He asked if she thought she should pull her hand away from his.
“I didn’t want to be disrespectful,” she responded.
He said Gautam will give evidence that he never asked her to stay the night, and never threatened to get her so drunk that she couldn’t say no.
“That is incorrect,” the complainant replied.
She said his threat of getting her drunk “constantly plays back in my mind”.
Morgan said Gautam would also testify that he joked that a “trophy” on the wall of his stairwell was a “wild sheep”, but she had corrected him, instead saying it was a tahr.
He would also testify that the only kiss that happened was on the bed, and that she had offered him her cheek, but she denied that.
Morgan asked if she gave Gautam a kiss on the cheek after he dropped her off, but she said no.
Arriving at his house, grabbing the wine glasses and wine, Gautam will give evidence that he said to her, “Let’s go up to my bedroom”.
“No, he didn’t say that,” she said. “He was going to do a tour of the house.”
“When you were in the bedroom and lay on the bed, did you do anything to indicate to him your distaste for being there?” Morgan asked.
“I inched away from him, and I did say ‘No’, and ‘Stop’, and ‘Don’t touch me like that’.”
Morgan asked her if she did anything to display her distaste, apart from one occasion that Gautram touched her breast.
“He touched me multiple times,” she replied.
Morgan quizzed her about what she told her husband.
She said that she initially told him limited information as she was worried about his mental health, and didn’t want to stress him out.
“Did you feel that what actually happened ... was not serious enough for a complaint to police so when you did ... you have exaggerated the extent to which Mr Gautam behaved toward you?”
“That is incorrect,” she replied.
In re-examination, Crown prosecutor Amy Alcock asked her again why she didn’t call her husband while Gautam was out of the room, grabbing more wine.
She said she didn’t know how long he was going to be.
“I was panicking in my head, so I didn’t know how to respond.”
In a question from Judge Tini Clark about how much she had told her husband that night, the woman said she “drip-fed more information to him about what happened over time”.
In his DVD interview with Detective Karl Prendergast, Gautam said he didn’t think the complainant would even take up his offer of a driving lesson as he only had his restricted licence himself.
“I thought she would politely decline,” he said.
Walking up the stairs to his room, Gautam said he asked the woman if it was “okay if we go to the bedroom”.
“She said, ‘Okay, I don’t mind’.”
On his super king bed, he asked her if he could kiss her, “and she didn’t say yes and didn’t say no”.
He then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
After a couple of glasses of wine, Gautam told Prendergast the complainant “was getting a bit more relaxed”.
“A bit more uninhibited. Time passed really quickly,” he said.
Gautam said he asked her if she was feeling okay, and she said she was.
Asked by Prendergast why he asked that, Gautam said it was because he had a female coming to his house for the first time.
“It’s obviously not to play snakes and ladders.”
The trial, set down for three days, continues.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.