Sex was consensual, says rape accused
A man facing rape and sexual violation charges has given evidence to tell the Christchurch District Court jury that the sexual encounter was “perfectly consensual”.
Joshua Allan Schooner, 26, was the last witness at his rape trial before Judge Raoul Neave.
The Crown accused Schooner of having “extreme sex” – including anal intercourse when he refused to stop in spite of their protests – with two women in 2012. One woman is the complainant in the trial, and the other was called to give evidence for the prosecution.
Schooner told the court he had met the complainant in the carpark in The Embankment Tavern, about 4am on June 23.
He denied raping her at his flat soon after, saying that the sex was “perfectly consensual” including a short period of anal intercourse. The complainant had started kissing him before he asked her up to his room. About a month later, the second woman had made him dinner and given him beer before the sex took place.
He said the encounter with the complainant turned sour afterwards when he wanted her to go, and she became angry when he returned from the toilet to find her going through the drawers in his room. When he told her to “Get out,” she was fuming and he alleged she told him: “You are a dirty pig and you will pay for this.”
Cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore, Schooner said the women’s statements were untrue about him having a split personality and becoming violent and aggressive during sex.
“That’s not me,” he said. “I don’t know why they have said the things they have about me.”
“It was all consensual. There was no force,” he said.
Schooner denies charges of rape, sexual violation, and abducting the woman. The Crown says he dragged her upstairs to his bedroom when she went with him to his Phillipstown flat to get a fork to start her car, after the police had taken her keys for being a restricted driver outside her permitted driving time.
After Schooner’s evidence the trial paused for legal discussions before counsel were to give their closing addresses. Judge Neave is expected to sum up on Thursday. Today is the third day of the trial.
Category: News
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