An Auckland businessman accused of assaulting a woman in March 2022 sits in court on the first day of his trial in the Auckland District Court on November 26, 2024. Photo / George Block
An Auckland businessman accused of assaulting a woman in March 2022 sits in court on the first day of his trial in the Auckland District Court on November 26, 2024. Photo / George Block
His lawyer Ron Mansfield KC cast doubt on her account while cross-examining the woman in the Auckland District Court.
He said his client had to forcefully remove her from his apartment because she was biting and scratching him following a disagreement after a night out. It was something he alleged she had done on previous occasions during their volatile relationship.
“You can try to rewrite this as much as you want but that is not what happened,” the woman told Mansfield.
During hours of tense cross-examination on Wednesday, she acknowledged having previously bitten the man prior to his alleged attack late one night in March 2022.
But she had only done so during other physical altercations with him in the context of repeated abuse, she said.
“If there are any incidents where I’ve lashed out it’s been as a result of violence, verbal abuse or psychological abuse.
“I don’t think that some of the things that happened during the relationship are my proudest moments. But I think when you are subject to that kind of abuse it’s unlikely that you’re not going to react.”
The successful Auckland businessman, aged in his 40s, has pleaded not guilty to three charges of assault and one of strangulation. He lost name suppression at the start of his trial but still cannot be named, pending an appeal.
Ron Mansfield KC, pictured during an earlier trial, is arguing the complainant's version of events is inconsistent with the facts. Photo / Michael Craig
The complainant, a young woman who also cannot be named, said she had returned to Auckland after being out of town for work to meet the man and his friends at a Mexican restaurant in the city.
He had been drinking for hours and had taken issue with her telling his friends about her work, something that wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, the woman said.
She said he had belittled her, at one point telling her to “go and sit with the other housewives”.
After the dinner, the group went to the nearby apartment of one of his friends, also a prominent New Zealand business figure.
The woman said her then-partner became so intoxicated that his friends asked her to take him home.
She described him as being unsteady on his feet as she walked him a few minutes up the road to his apartment. After they returned, he became aggrieved at being forced to leave his friend’s apartment and a verbal altercation turned physical, she said.
The woman described the man as having “pounced” on her in his bedroom, spurring Mansfield to ask what she meant.
“When you see an MMA [mixed martial arts] fighter and they just lunge at their opponent,” she explained.
She alleged he struck her on the right side of her jaw, forcing her to fall to the floor and bang her head.
He then straddled her with his knees onher chest and strangled her, she alleged.
The woman said she was initially completely stunned and did not react. But she soon began struggling against the man with all the force she could muster, she said.
During her evidence, she never used the man’s name, instead preferring the legal term “the defendant”.
“I’m underneath the defendant, being strangled, and my vision starts to go a little bit dotty,” she said.
“That’s my last memory up until I can remember being dragged through the kitchen.”
The woman said she was pushed, dragged and shoved out of the apartment into the hallway before the defendant slammed the door.
He later opened the door briefly only to push her back down onto the floor, she said.
As his cross-examination wore on, Mansfield put another version of events to her.
He said the woman, who said she felt sober after four drinks over a few hours, was more intoxicated than she let on.
As the defendant alleged she had done previously, she shook him awake after they returned to the apartment and went to bed, trying to start a fight about the state of their relationship, Mansfield said.
She was trying to bite and scratch at him, and a tussle ensued on the bed as the woman tried to get at his client, the KC alleged.
Mansfield said the man then picked up his aggressive partner in a “bear hug” and carried her out of the apartment into the hallway before shutting the door behind her.
She had contacted the man’s friend, whose apartment the couple had just visited, and he had called the defendant passing on her request to be let back in, Mansfield said.
When he opened the door, she had immediately resumed her attack, forcing him to close it again, the lawyer alleged.
That version of events was rejected by the woman.
“My injuries were the result of a vicious attack by the defendant,” she said.
After locking her out, the man sent her a text message saying “You bit me” and took a photo of his injury.
The woman acknowledged biting the man on the thumb but said she did so in self-defence during a chaotic assault while being dragged out of the apartment.
“I was doing anything that I could in order to stop what was happening,” she said.
Mansfield repeatedly questioned the woman as to why she tried to get back into the apartment after she said she was strangled and attacked.
She said her keys and wallet remained in the house so she was unable to get into her own apartment, had nowhere to go as it was after midnight and was concussed and in shock.
The woman told Mansfield she was trying any way she could to get back into the apartment to get her belongings.
Mansfield raised a text message she sent to the man’s friend, who had offered to pay for her to spend a night in a city hotel. She was not in any state to walk through the city to a hotel, she said.
One of the neighbours in the apartment block who came to investigate the noise eventually gave her a place to stay for the night.
While locked out of the apartment, she texted the defendant’s friend, whose home they had been visiting earlier in the night, writing “If you or a representative for [the defendant] is not here in five minutes, I will be forced to call the police”.
Mansfield produced a text showing she also texted the friend saying: “I’m being denied access to my residence. This is going to get very ugly.”
Mansfield asked what she meant by ugly. The woman said she was unsure.
“Is this very ugly for [the defendant]?” asked Mansfield, referring to the trial.
