The group walked from their gym to go dancing at a Central Wellington bar. Photo / File
The group walked from their gym to go dancing at a Central Wellington bar. Photo / File
Warning: This story discusses sexual harm and may be upsetting.
A jury has retired to deliberate the fate of a Wellington sportsman accused of indecently assaulting three women, and drugging one, during a gym Christmas party.
The man, who has name suppression, has spent six days on trial at the Wellington District Court where he faces six charges of indecent assault against the women, one a teen at the time. He is also accused of aggravated wounding, “stupefying” one of the three with an unknown pill with the intention of sexually assaulting her.
The Crown and defence gave their closing address this morning, both claiming lies have been told in the court over the course of the trial, which was meant to last four days.
Prosecutor Tamara Jenkin told the jury the man was “surrounded by pretty women who trusted him and looked up to him” that night.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to believe this is something he would do,” Jenkin said. “He wanted their bodies, and he did not care if they were consenting or not.”
Jenkin summarised the crown’s case, and the evidence she believed showed the jury the allegations had been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
She reiterated it was a drunken night, and while some details of the accounts of what happened have differed over the past week between witnesses on both sides, she asked the jury to focus on the evidence in front of them.
“What matters is [he] was aware of what he was doing at the time,” Jenkin said. “He was intoxicated and in his inebriated state thought he would give it a go.”
He is alleged to have touched the bottoms and breasts of two women while walking from the gym to a Central Wellington bar, and while there forced one an “unknown pill”, which caused her to be impaired in 2020.
He is also alleged to have slapped the bottom of a teen when he put her on a raised platform and asked her to dance for him before he kissed her.
Jenkin said the women had never given the sportsman consent to do what he has been alleged to have done, and said the touching was “with force and intentional”.
She said the pill the man had forced into the mouth of one at the bar was only after she had denied him twice, and after he had asked if she trusted him.
The man had “told lies” and had repeatedly made inconsistent statements, Jenkin said, however, the women had no motive to make up their accounts of what happened the night of the party.
The jury has retired in the trial of a Wellington sportsman. Photo / File
During his closing address, lawyer Paul Knowsley said the Crown had not proven its case against his client, and there was reasonable doubt about the allegations which his client denies.
“What happened at the most [is] that he lost his moral compass that night and perhaps acted inappropriately during the revelry,” Knowsley told the jury.
“That doesn’t translate to a conclusion that [he] committed a crime.”
Knowsley put to the jury that the women had made false allegations to serve their “cynical agenda” and avoid judgement from others.
“Is he that monster,” Knowsley asked the jury. “Or is he a man against whom lies have been told.”
During his closing address, he called one of the women “a bloody liar”, and referred to the CCTV footage saying the camera doesn’t lie, later referring to her testimony as a “web of deceit”.
Knowsley said touching that was seen on the footage from the bar that night was consensual and initiated by the women, not his client, and the pill that was given to one was taken consensually.
Judge Peter Hobbs summed the case up and sent the group of 12 to deliberate the sportsman’s fate this afternoon.
Hazel Osborne is an Open Justice reporter for NZME and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Wellington. She joined the Open Justice team at the beginning of 2022, previously working in Whakatāne as a court and crime reporter in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
