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The former girlfriend of league star Michael Crockett who is facing rape charges in Australia says she believes the Warriors player is innocent.
Keitiria McColl, 20, had been dating Crockett for just a month when the alleged incident happened after a Warriors match in Sydney last August. She says Crockett told her father about the rape allegations and she stayed with him for a further five months, believing the sex was consensual.
But the former Maori netball rep says she is angry he was unfaithful to her and that he downplayed the charges, saying sexual assault could mean "anything ... like you could just touch somebody [on the arm] like that".
Crockett appeared in Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Monday for a committal hearing on three counts of rape.
The court heard from the alleged victim's sister who said she went home with Warriors teammate Evarn Tuimavave the night of the alleged incident, and Crockett followed with her 19-year-old sister soon after.
The woman said she saw Crockett lying on top of her sister when she went in to say goodbye on her way to work the next morning.
When she asked whether Crockett was staying or wanted a lift back to the team hotel, the woman said her sister strongly said: "No, he's going home." She and Tuimavave waited in the car but "nobody came out so we left". The sister said the victim later told her Crockett hurt her because she didn't want to have sex with him.
Crockett's lawyer has asked the magistrate to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the evidence is questionable.
Keitiria, a trained makeup artist and former competitive swimmer, says she should have split with Crockett when the rape charges were laid but "I felt so sorry for him".
"He kept saying to me 'I didn't do it, I didn't do it' ... the way I saw it was he didn't have any family over here and we were his family. I didn't want to break up with him because I just felt so sorry for him."
She says Crockett was always romantic and a gentleman with her and their relationship involved a lot of "hanging out at home" with her parents, quiet walks along the beach and dinners out near her Mission Bay home. The couple split at Christmas due to McColl's personal issues and Crockett's transtasman life. But even now McColl says that she believes her former boyfriend is innocent.
The couple met when McColl worked in a bar at Auckland club Boogie Wonderland. She had no idea the Australian was a league star - until her father recognised his name.
But McColl says she knows only too well how women target sports stars like Crockett.
"I see them all the time. I work in a bar. I think these women see money, money, money because that's the biggest thing."
McColl says she has seen women target well known All Blacks and league stars, staring at them as if to say "I see you". "They are skinny and very blonde... they have no class and I just don't like the tight, short, skimpy skirts with lots of cleavage - it's a skank fest."
McColl, who is now in another relationship, says she is still in touch with Crockett who is essentially a "good person".
"I know people will be thinking 'Why did you stay with him' but my family and I were close to him..." Crockett's case returns to the Sydney court on July 31.
