Lengthy cross-examination of rape complainant ends
A 17-year-old girl has ended her evidence spread over four days – mostly under cross-examination by counsel for five men accused of a Woodend sex attack – by telling a High Court jury, “I said it was rape because it was rape.”
The court had taken extra breaks at the direction of trial judge Justice David Gendall as the days of cross-examination continued, and the court had adjourned for two afternoons.
Defence counsel Steve Hembrow, for Troy Matua James McIver, put to the girl who was aged 16 at the time of the Woodend Beach incident that she had not consented, but she had “behaved in such a way that my client believed you were consenting, if he was involved in any sexual acts”.
She replied that she had been saying, “No, no, no”, and was not consenting.
He said a witness would be called to give evidence that the girl said later that the sex had been pretty disgusting so she told people it was rape.
She replied: “It was disgusting, but that’s not the reason. I said it was rape because it was rape.”
Isaac Jason Mould, 21, from Woodend, Brook Sebastian Norris, a 22-year-old landscape gardener from Brooklands, McIver, 21, a rigger from Rangiora, Ky Robert Reginald Reid, a 21-year-old logging contractor from Woodend, and Stuart Mitchell Lewis, 21, deny three charges of rape and one charge of unlawful sexual connection.
The Crown alleges that the woman was raped by Mould, McIver, and Norris, and Lewis sexually violated her by oral sex. Reid has been charged as a party, though he is not alleged to have raped or violated the girl himself.
Under cross-examination, the girl said she was not sure whether Norris had intercourse with her after she said she was taken to the sand dunes during a bonfire gathering on the beach on May 23, 2014. She could remember him drinking at the gathering, and then taking her away to the dunes. “I am not sure if it was Brook who held me down,” she said.
In answer to Andrew McKenzie, counsel for Reid, she said she was angry with Reid because he had not done anything to help, and had not stopped the incident. It seemed from what he said, that he would have taken part if he had been able to get an erection.
Today was the fourth day of the trial, which is expected to take two weeks.
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