Rotorua High court where Jamie Dean Keremete is on trial for sex and violence offences. Photo / File
Rotorua High court where Jamie Dean Keremete is on trial for sex and violence offences. Photo / File
A tattooist charged with sex and violence offences has been excused from hearing an alleged victim's claims after his lawyer indicated he found them distressing.
Justice Matthew Palmer QC let Jamie Dean Keremete, 47, leave the court today. His trial's under way in the High Court at Rotorua where he faces 22 charges involving two complainants.
The second of his alleged victims described how she felt she was being held prisoner by an enraged Keremete in a cottage.
She described him flying into a rage and throwing her into his car while pulling her by the hair. She screamed but no one from the cottage came to help.
Back inside she tried to escape but he threw her on a bed, ripping her clothes off.
She described him forcing himself on her, despite her protests.
The woman outlined a series of violent attacks she claimed Keremete inflicted on her, including threatening to cut her head off with a sword, saying when his sister saw what was going on Keremete claimed he was showing her how to swing it.
Other alleged instances of violence included having her tights shoved down her throat until she could no longer breathe, a knife pulled on her, a baseball bat swung at her and threats made to set her on fire as he brandished a petrol can.
She claimed she was subjected to regular vicious sexual encounters.
Once when she began bleeding he ordered her to clean herself up, then continued to violate her. "He was in a frenzy, he wouldn't stop," she testified.
On one occassion Keremete told her he'd drive them both into the Waikato River if she left him. "It took me a couple of hours to calm him down so he wouldn't do it."
Among threats he made were having her committed to a psychiatric unit and having her benefit stopped.
Earlier, the mother of the first alleged victim to testify claimed he'd threatened her that she'd never see her daughter again and that no one would be able to find her.
The mother claimed Keremete had made the threat during one of his numerous phone calls to her home. In another he'd said he was quite high up in a bikie gang and could get anyone to do anything.
She told how her daughter appeared terrified of Keremete and had a panic button installed on her phone while police had issued her with an emergency violence alarm.
"He was making threats against her to me, threats against me to her," the woman said.
She insisted she'd seen bruising on her daughter after she'd been with Keremete but agreed it was quite possible she'd gone with him voluntarily.
However, Keremete's mother, Dorothy Mohi, accused the complainant of flirting with her ex-husband, going out partying and being drunk "all the time".
She told the court she suspected the complainant of being behind a home invasion during which her son was stabbed and of stalking him. She was adamant she'd never seen bruises on the complainant.
Rotorua High court where Jamie Dean Keremete is on trial for sex and violence offences. Photo / File
