Girl, 13, says she was forced to smoke cannabis, then raped

Aukustino Fa'atafa denies all five charges against him. Photo / Janna Dixon

A High Court jury has today watched a video interview with a 13-year-old girl who said she was forced to smoke cannabis by a man before he raped her in the bushes of an Auckland park last year.

The interview with the girl, now 15, was played on the first day of the trial of Aukustino Fa'atafa, 35, who faces two charges of sexual violation, one charge of rape, one of detaining the girl without consent and one of supplying cannabis to a person under 18.

Fa'atafa denies all the charges, saying the girl consented to sexual activity.

In the interview, played in a closed court, the girl said she had gone to the Pt Chevalier shops on Easter Sunday last year with her father, who gave her 60c to buy lollies and left her alone to make the 15-minute walk home.

On her way home she came across a man, who started talking to her and said she reminded him of his little sister.

She went with him along a path to a BP station on Great North Road, where he went inside to buy a pie, cigarettes and an energy drink.

While she was outside she told a woman she needed help and asked her if she could pretend she was her mother because there was a man who was telling her what to do.

The woman told her not to go with him but didn't pretend to be her mother, the girl said.

She said she didn't run away because the man was looking at her all the time.

After that they went into bushes in Oakley Reserve, where she said "he got me stoned".

"I was trying to escape but he got me. I tried to escape again but he got me again," she said.

A short time later she said she didn't want to talk to him.

"He said `just shut up and take your pants off'," she said.

She said he grabbed her jacket so hard it almost choked her before putting her down and telling her again to take down her pants. When she didn't, he took them off her, she said.

She said the man then sexually violated her before raping her, while she was crying and screaming.

"He said `you'll have a big family, then you'll be able to live with me'," she said.

She said he also asked her if she loved him, before asking her not to tell anyone what had happened.

After the alleged violation she walked back home, with Fa'atafa following her.

Once there she said she told her stepmother, who then went back to the reserve and confronted the alleged offender.

Crown prosecutor Fionnghuala Cuncannon said the prosecution case was not complicated.

"It's about whether she consented to have sex in the bushes with a man she'd never met before."

Fa'atafa's lawyer Mele Tuilotolava said the girl consented.

Jurors "might even be of the view that this young girl is also capable of instigating the first meeting, the first conversation, inviting him to walk away with her as she makes her way home", Ms Tuilotolava said.

"She got there on her own free will and she took part in what she wanted to take part in."

The trial before Justice Peter Woodhouse and the jury is scheduled for eight days.

- NZPA