Source: Radio New Zealand
RNZ / Nate McKinnon
A man who claims he was sexually assaulted as a teen by an older man decades ago has been accused of making up the allegation to get a prison sentence reduced.
The accused, who has name suppression, has pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection between 1994 and 1995.
A retrial of the alleged assailant started in the Christchurch District Court yesterday.
Yesterday, Crown prosecutor Penny Brown said the complainant, who was 18 or 19 years old at the time of the alleged offending, claims the pair drank and smoked cannabis at a bach in Lake Coleridge bach, before the complainant became so intoxicated he thought he might have been drugged.
The complainant said he was put to bed by the accused, and woke to find he was being sexually assaulted.
Brown said the complainant didn’t report it to the police until 2020, by which time she said his life had derailed and he was due to be sentenced for serious offending.
The complainant had earlier mentioned the alleged abuse to the writer of a pre-sentence report.
The accused’s defence lawyer, David Stevens, today asked the complainant about the timing of the complaint.
Stevens put to the complainant he told the pre-sentence report writer he had been abused in an attempt to reduce his sentence, and told his family about the allegation to try and explain his offending.
“No, I didn’t use anything. I don’t advertise my past, I don’t pity myself for what has happened to me over my life time. I don’t … poor me.”
Brown asked the complainant what led to him making the complaint when he did.
He said while in prison he encountered people who had experienced a lot of abuse in their lives, but he saw some of them had spoken up about what had happened to them and it had helped them.
“When you are brought up kids are supposed to be seen but not heard, you’re not meant to bring things up. And you live that life but seeing some of these old boys, and some of them are tough buggers, but to hear them come out and say you need to get it off your chest, you need to speak to someone.”
Brown asked him his response to the allegation he made up the complaint.
“What am I doing here now then? Why am I going through this now?” said the man.
“I’ve been sentenced and I’m a free man. If someone was in jail? Sure. But I’m a free man and this could have been knocked on the head ages ago. I wouldn’t be putting myself through this.”
The trial is continuing.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
